David @ Tokyo

South Park always was my favourite TV show...

I've never seen an episode of Whale Wars but South Park's makers have made Paul Watson's reality TV show the butt of the joke in episode 11 of South Park's 13th season. You can watch the episode online here at South Park Studios.

Warning: if you aren't familiar with South Park and are easily offended, best not to watch! Paul Watson fans also will not be impressed, as the big bellied vegan gets heavily scorned.

Labels: Humour, Sea Shepherd, South Park

Iceland's is an interesting situation, with the majority of Iceland's populace supporting whaling, whereas their new government seems to be of the "anti-trade" persuasion (at least with respect to whale products), yet not exactly "anti-whaling" per se.

Nonetheless, as this Bloomberg article indicates (without getting into any of the typical western culture cringe) whaling is providing some jobs for people there in need of work.

At the same time, many other reports indicate that currency exchange rates are making Iceland an attractive destination for tourists. This is in very stark contrast to perpetual economic threats that have be leveled in Iceland's direction because of it's exercising its sovereign right to harvest marine resources (here's SSCS' blather, but also see this).

Iceland's government shutting down or scaling back sustainable whaling activities at this point wouldn't make sense for many reasons as far as I am concerned, but let's see what happens next year.

Labels: Iceland

"It is costly but is the lost of one human worth it because it was too costly to tow [whale] carcasses further out?"

It seems a bit of debate going on in Australia about what to do about dead whales, shark nets etc. This continues the theme I introduced previously about increasing whale populations around Australia, and the possibility for it to bring about change in thinking over time. The more money whales cost Australian taxpayers, the more they may start to think about how they ought to be managed and conserved.

Here's another article about beached humpbacks in Australia.

This also made me think - if the meat on these animals is in good condition, they could actually sell it to Japan and use the proceeds to deal with the financial costs of disposal etc. But of course, at this stage such logic probably would not pass in Australia (and they would have to work around international trade issues too... but it's an idea nonetheless.)

Labels: humpbacks

Another delay on my part, but once again here's your monthly (August 2009) update for whale meat inventory statistics from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries.

As I alluded to last time, I was unable to put these up sooner as I took a jaunt down to the Philippines. It was smashing - did some snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, plus enjoyed some local cuisine. Best mangoes I've ever had in my life (don't eat mangoes often, but still they were amazing). More on this another time maybe.

Here's the update:

August Statistics

Statistic	Volume (tons)
Outgoing	809
Incoming	1851
Month-end	5288

The figures speak for themselves, it was a busy month with the incoming volume for an August being a record in the history I have on this going back to 2001, and 16% higher than in the prior-year period. The bulk of this seemingly was from the offshore component of the ICR's JAPRN II programme conducted in the western north pacific, which drew to a close at the end of July. Presumably it wasn't until August that by-product meat from this programme hit storage facilities. The ICR press release noted that bad weather hindered the programme this year in the northern sectors of the research area, and as a result only 43 minke whales were taken versus a planned sample size of 100, however for Sei (100) and Bryde's (50) whales, the planned number of whales were caught. Only 1 sperm whale was caught from the 10 permitted.

This additional product, while reflected in the inventory figures, will likely not be going on sale until November, judging by the sequence of events last year. The ICR will probably put out another release shortly, giving a break down of the by-products that they will be putting on sale.

Meanwhile, the outgoing volume figure was also the most for an August since 2002, however only 3% higher than the August 2008 figure. The July 2009 figure had also been the lowest in 5 years, so a somewhat stronger figure in August was not so unexpected.

On a net basis, total inventory was boosted up to 5288 tons, the bulk of which is held in Tokyo storage facilities. The last time inventory was so high was back in the summer of 2006, however in that year inventory peaked in April at a much higher level, just short of 6000 tons. As for August 2009, the outgoing figure was a 25% increase versus the prior month, and again 31% higher than the same time a year ago. While demand for whale products (as indicated through the outgoing volume figures) appears softer this year than prior to the global economic crisis, on the supply side the amount of incoming volume has actually been greater in 2009 than any year except the bumper 2006 year, which is also contributing to the increasing inventory levels.

This situation of relatively high inventory levels is not likely to change over the next few months, due to the additional 1500 tons of Icelandic fin whale products reportedly set for import into Japan. The exact timing of the related transactions does not seem to be clear yet however.


Top Regions

Region	Stockpile size at month end	Stockpile size at previous month end	Movement
Tokyo city wards	3,475	2,512	+963
Ishinomaki	394	261	+133
Hakodate	392	394	-2
Shimonoseki	274	339	-65
Funabashi	257	273	-16
Nagasaki	172	127	+45
Sasebo	79	-	-

The bulk of the incoming and outgoing volume for the month appears to have occurred in Tokyo storage facilities, with a net 963 ton gain.


Outgoing stock (cumulative)


Incoming stock (cumulative)


Monthly volumes


Annual volumes

Labels: whale meat inventory statistics, whale meat market, whale meat trade

Hi everyone, here's your July update on Japanese whale meat inventory statistics, data as usual pulled from the homepage of the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries.

These stats came out last month actually, and indeed the August stats are due for release next Friday (October 9th) but I'm not likely to be able to publish those here until some time after that (will be enjoying a long weekend).

Not evident in these statistics, but the word is that Iceland's fin whaling company will be supplying around 1500 tons of fin whale meat products to the Japanese market sometime in the upcoming months. This will be a pretty historical event for the whale market here, as there haven't been any really significant levels of exports for around 2 decades. There is a fairly good chance that this will result in the total inventory level hitting a new peak in recent history. Good news for whale consumers.

July Statistics

Statistic	Volume (tons)
Outgoing	653
Incoming	381
Month-end	4246

Both the Outgoing and Incoming volumes were around 73-74% of the same month in the prior year, but the Month-end volume was 131%.




Top Regions

Region	Stockpile size at month end	Stockpile size at previous month end	Movement
Tokyo city wards	2,512	2,865	-353
Hakodate	394	395	-1
Shimonoseki	339	447	-108
Funabashi	273	281	-8
Ishinomaki	261	185	+76
Nagasaki	127	107	+20
Kawasaki	76	-	-

Sasebo dropped out of the top 7 in July, with Kawasaki's extra stocks bringing it up into 7th place.

The graph below shows the total inventory (top line) and the regional breakdown below it for illustrative purposes.


Outgoing stock (cumulative)


Incoming stock (cumulative)


Monthly volumes


Annual volumes

Labels: whale meat inventory statistics, whale meat market, whale meat trade