TOKYO, 11 June – The rogue nation of Japan announced that it will expand its annual commercial whaling operations to include murdering 59 of the world’s second largest vulnerable whales, fins.
Japan’s new $48 million mothership, the Kangei Maru is 113m(370ft) and 9300 tons, a ghastly floating whale slaughterhouse.
Already Japan cold-bloodedly tortures and kills 25 seis, 187 Bryde’s and 142 minke whales each year, with impunity.
The ‘greyhounds of the sea’, or fin whales can attain an admirable 25m(80ft) length and a whopping 55-ton weight. In the summer, fins consume 2 tons of krill daily. Who in their right mind would ever consider harming such a sanctified masterpiece? Image credit uk.whales.org
Is the nation of Japan starving? No. Instead, thousands of tons of unwanted and unsaleable whale meat are cold stored by the Japanese government and forced into the Nippon National School Lunch programme.
Distressingly, the whales are loaded with PCBs, DDT, methylmercury, glyphosate, neonicotinoids and thousands of other deadly chemicals. Those hideous poisons biomagnify a million times inside Japanese children.
What does the Japanese medical system have to say about this atrocity? “Mum’s the word!” Complacent, complicit and unpardonable.
The oceans are gasping, acidifying, cooking with combustion heat and 40 per cent of phytoplankton is missing, the basis of the marine food web. The whales are biogeochemical farmers of the sea. Whales circulate vital nutrients that resituate the phytoplankton. To slaughter whales in the midst of the climate and extinction crises, especially since whales are outstanding climate solvers, is a catastrophe for planetary life.
In November, the Japanese government whalers will enter the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to grenade-tip harpoon and inflict an excruciating death to the fin whales. This nefariousness is in spite of both the International Court of Justice and the Australian federal court rulings preventing them from doing so. Unlawfulness.
In our world, lawless behaviour is punishable by internment. Japan’s cruelty against sentient whales, at this moment in human history, is unforgivable!
SHAME on Japan. Refuse to support Japanese goods, services or tourism until Japan ENDS all brutality and slavery against our brethren and sistren, the cetaceans (porpoises, dolphins, whales).
Agitate. Disrupt. Defend.
Reese Halter is a bees/trees/seas defender.
Unearthly Wails is a special edition, a collection of poetry
illustrated by renowned Ojibwa artist Terry McCue.
Email: HalterBooks@gmail.com to order
