Whaling war of words
Japan’s farm minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi has stepped up to defend Japan’s research whaling efforts in the face of Australia’s threat to send warships to the Antarctic Sea to monitor Japanese whalers operating there.
“Research whaling is authorized under an international treaty,” the agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister told a news conference. “None is empowered to block research whaling as long as it is done legitimately.”
Wakabayashi said that Japan would have no problem with Australia monitoring its research whaling fleet, but stressed that the Japanese government “cannot tolerate a blockade of research operations.”
U.S. pressuring Japan to stop
In the meantime, the United States is said to be pressuring Japan to suspend its hunt.
“I think we had an agreement this morning or last night between the United States and Japan that humpback whales would not be harvested, I think, until maybe the international whaling conference in June,” Schieffer said.
Because of the migration patterns of the whales, such a delay until the next annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission would mean “that it’ll be awhile before they’re at risk again,” he said.
There have been signs that the Japanese government is reconsidering its strident claims that it is entitled to conduct whaling for research purposes.
“To take the concerns and anger of Australian people and other people into consideration, I think the Japanese government has started to have an intensive discussion about what steps should be taken,” said Tomohiko Taniguchi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
“But at the moment I have heard no action, or no decision as to whether or not any sort of halt would be done this time around during this research season,” he said.
Japan says there is no agreement
Japan is denying news reports that they have already agreed with the U.S. to halt their current humpback whaling expedition.
“There is no (new) written, diplomatic agreement between Japan and the United States over the current specific whaling mission… and whaling in general,” said Tomohiko Taniguchi, spokesman for the Japanese foreign ministry.
He was responding to comments by US ambassador Thomas Schieffer, who reportedly told journalists Wednesday that Japan and the United States agreed on no harvesting of humpback whales for the time being.
oh look here is a post about Whaling with no comments next to it..the perfect place to dump this vaguely related but difficult to verify bunch of “facts”(?).
I was flipping thru a novel set in wartime London during the Blitz, and suddenly the author started mentioning food rationing and the selling of something known as Snoek, which I had always thought to be a Barracuda like fish from South Africa..but which he (the author) was suggesting was Whale meat.
Well of course I dragged myself out of my cosy armchair and trudged across to the computer, carefully stepping over a half empty bottle of fernet and an fresh crate of lager and googled-in (as you do) “Snoek London Blitz Whale” and turned up something which might or might not be factual, courtesy of the “Bolshevik Broadcasting Company” otherwise known as the Beeb.
(sorry for the link EC but the BBC are no threat to the mighty JAPUNDIT).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/08/a4360808.shtml
*Come to think of it, my Uncle Reggie once mentioned something about eating a whale, but I just put it down to his overdoing the after-dinner Vintage Port.*
well, there you go, I wrote somthing about Whales.
rem.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:53 amInteresting. It’s a kid’s recollection so I can see how you might want to take it with a grain of salt. I can also see how you might have access to horse meat during the war, but with all those U-boats making the waters treacherous, how did people manage to kill whales in those days, I wonder.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:21 amwell as one of the commenters of that article stated, it came in from South Africa along with the Snoek.
here is an extract from an article detailing food rationing during and after the war..
“June 1942 - American dried egg powder on sale. 1s 9d (9p) per packet (equivalent to 12 eggs) Wholemeal loaf (”The National loaf”) introduced (far more wheat used which meant less wastage. Sausages contained less and less real pork or beef /Horsemeat commonly available (later WHALE meat was also available)
July 1942 - Sweets and chocolate 2 oz per person per week.
August 1942 - Biscuits added to points system.
August 1942 - Cheese ration was increased to 8 oz per person per week.
December 1942 Oat flakes added to points system.
December 1944 - Extra tea allowance for 70 year olds and over introduced.
January 1945 - WHALE meat and snoek available for sale.”
..so I’d guess that they were Hunting for Snoek and Whales (and possibly the odd Jabberwocky) down in South Africa then whipping the meat into cans and shipping it off to Britain where Lord Woolton the Minister of Food and his trusty team of dieticians would plop it into a Woolton Pie and bake it for a hour or so
“Woolton Pie - named after the Minister of Food.
2.5lb potatoes
1lb cauliflower
1lb swede
1lb carrots
1tsp marmite
2oz oatmeal
4 spring onions
2oz cheese ”
y’know I’m fairly confident that out there in NetLand there exists a photo of a can of Whalemeat (circa.1945) or even a leftover box of cans in a backroom at the Imperial War Museum…
So Whalemeat (along with hedgehog and badger meat), in a strange way helped my forbears survive World War 2 - thus being around to create me.
*I’m grateful to those Whales and Snarks for making such a great sacrifice.*
Hat’s off to Whales
remora.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:07 am