Whaling Moratorium and Southern Ocean Sanctuary
cause waste of resources
Because of their large size, whales consume a tremendous
amount of marine living resources.
Currently there are more than 10 million whales throughout the world, and the quantity of marine living resources they consume is estimated to be some 180 million tons a year in the Antarctic alone and 500 million tons in all the oceans of the world combined. This represents approximately five times* as much as the total of the resources now being harvested by the world's marine fisheries (90 million tons).
Areas designated as whale sanctuaries
Biased protection of some selected species (i.e. whales) in the marine ecosystem will cause disruption in the balance of the ecosystem and lead to a decline in the amount of marine living resources that could be used as food for the human population.
Japan is opposed to the decisions on the commercial whaling moratorium and the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, which are designed to prohibit the use of abundant whale species. Japan is proposing the sustainable harvesting of minke whales whose population is estimated to be over 760,000 in the Antarctic alone.
Marine resources consumed by Antarctic whales
| *: | According to recent calculations, the total annual food consumption of cetaceans is estimated to be from 3 to 6 times the amount of the yearly world marine commercial fisheries catch. (See 'Tamura T. and Ohsumi S., 1999, Estimation of total food consumption by cetaceans in the world's oceans. The Institute of Cetacean Research. ') |
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