The esoteric opportunity to ‘think about whales’ linking man with the whales and the oceans? Essay contests winning the President Prize of the Ishinomaki Chamber of Commerce and Industry written by a second grader?
All this and more can be found at the Japan whaling Association website.
I came across this website while doing research on the Australian Governments use of the Airbus A319’s first whaling surveillance mission.
With all the tensions growing and turmoil surrounding Japan’s dogged pursuit of it’s “scientific” whaling program I had to wonder why they continue to sail in such politically charged and unpopular waters. After all, what could possibly be learned from 900 dead minke that wasn’t learned from the first 35?
In the name of ’science’ isn’t even a clever cover-up. Not many are buying that thinly sliced excuse, but they may just be buying some thinly sliced whale meat. Waxing nostalgic for her school lunches, Chizue Yamagiwa, cooking expert, most fondly remembers “whale cutlet,” “fried whale meat,” and “whale soup.”
Yamagiwa says, “Thinking simply, there is nothing wrong in adding whales to our food options, which include poultry, pork and beef.” She goes on that as it is beginning to become quite chilly she will cook kujira-jiru, whale pot, in the evening. She describes it as a beautiful, colorful dish with the red and white of whale bacon and the green of the radish sprouts. She says, “I am sure it will invite me to more cups of sake this evening.”
Is whaling really a cultural issue or is it a propaganda issue? To borrow words from Ms. Yamagiwa, “Thinking simply” I’m thinking it may just be a commercial code kind of issue.
One thing is certain from my vantage point. I’d have to have more than “more cups of sake” to garner the ability to sit down to a steaming bowl of whale bacon soup.
Don’t miss this window into the thinking of the Japanese Whaling Association.
The meat from the slaughtered whales is sold to restaurants and supermarkets and the profits are used to fund future hunts. Nice work if you can get it! But, read further for the catch.
The Nisshin Maru has left Japan and is now heading towards the coast of Antarctica to begin the largest hunt for whales since 1963. Japan still uses the tired ‘Scientific’ whale hunt label to continue bringing death and destruction, mutilation and torture to the giants of the sea. But, so does Iceland. Norway on the other hand doesn’t try to mask it’s whaling behind the transparent sham of science. They just call their whaling ‘commercial’.
Let’s face it. The claim that Japan has made over the years that whaling is a Japanese tradition going back to the early 1600’s is a poor excuse. Defecating in a hole was a tradition dating back even longer. I don’t see anyone making a claim they should return to their old traditional toilet habits.
Adding insult to the injury that is about to take place, the SeaShepard is reporting that as the Nisshin Maru pulled out of port while crowds of well wishers were flying balloons with smiling whale pictures and cheering. One more nice touch was a brass band that played “Popeye the Sailor Man” on the dock!
Killing more than 1,000 whales will only serve to partially satiate some people’s desire to eat whale sandwiches at fast food restaurants. I contend that anyone that would find a whale sandwich desirable dinning fare, just might consider eating their own grandmother on a bun. Not before, however, they examined her earwax to determine her true age. Before you think I’ve gone bonkers, the examination of the whale’s earwax to determine age is one of the scientific probs said to be done by Japan.
Japan has killed 10,500 whales since the moratorium on commercial whaling took effect. Greenpeace has said Japan has close to 4.000 tons of whale meat in cold storage.
Iceland and Norway are also whaling. In 2006 Norway increased its quota from 797 to 1,052 whales in what was considered to be a political statement. Apparently that ’statement’ backfired because demand for the meat by the Norwegian public is down. Sue fisher from the Whale and Dolphin conservation Society said ‘Middlemen can’t see the meat already caught and have run out of storage space.”
Iceland still using the scientific exemption for their actions would, however, like to export their ’science’ to Japan. Japan is still the world’s largest market for whale meat. All of this flies in the face of ’science’.
Iceland announced plans to export whale meat from it’s scientific whaling program to the Faroe Islands. Apparently they’ll eat anything there too. The Faroe Islands maintain they are exempt from regulations prohibiting the importation of whale meat.
Arni Finnsson from Iceland Nature Conservation Association says “There is no market for this meat in Iceland, there is no possibility to export it to Japan; the government appears to have listened to fishermen who are blaming whales for eating all the fish.”
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that in Japan Sushi Chefs have been driven to experimenting with meats other than tuna to make their delectable. Horse meat anyone?
Tadashi Ymagata, vice chairman of Japan’s national union of sushi chefs puts it this way: “It’s like America running out of steak.”
Blue fin tuna are slow-maturing fish. They simply cannot keep up with demand. Fewer Bluefins are driving the prices out of reach for the average sushi eater.
One wholesaler in a Tokyo fish market said 3 years ago he sold 2 or 3 bluefins everyday, this year he can only find 2 or 3 everyday, this year he can only find 2 or 3 per month to sell.
The fact that NOAA is celebrating its 200th year of service in and of itself is mind boggling. Their website boasts 200 years of science, service and stewardship. Regardless of NOAA’s recommendations, warnings and reports somewhere stewardship of the oceans has fallen through the cracks.
More than 60 countries and the European Commission are engaged in ‘global monitoring network’ Great idea. While chicken little runs around screaming at the top of his lungs ‘the sky is falling, the sky is falling.’ who will participate in devising a method to hold up the sky?
We know the ocean is dying. Who will hold up the ocean?
In 2004, the Office of Naval Reactors, which is part of the Department of Energy, sent a memo to the NRC, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, requesting that all correspondence between the NRC and Nuclear Fuel Services of Erwin, Tennessee be marked “Official Use Only”. This memo itself was labeled “Official Use Only”. The Memo that established the policy was itself kept secret.
Fast forward to March 6, 2006 when NFS of Erwin Tennessee had a spill of “high-enriched uranium” HEU solution at their Erwin plant. Approximately 35 liters and did not notify local officials, or their neighbors. Apparently not one word of this occurrence left the plant which employs approximately 715 employees until April of this year, 2007.
In its required annual report to Congress the NRC included this incident. Titled “Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences: Fiscal Year 2006″
Nuclear Fuel Services, NFS actually acted in compliance with the DOE and the NRC when it did NOT disclose the spill to the public, but did report the spill to the NRC. I find no fault in their compliance. Their fault will, no doubt, be determined in this instance to safety issues that led to the spill in the first place, not to their obligation to inform their neighbors of what happened.
I would have been freaked out had I found 35 liters of orange juice leaking out of my refrigerator and running down my hall. I can’t imagine the feeling a worker had when coming upon 9 gallons of yellow HEU flowing from under a door and into a hallway.
The spill could have caused a self-sustaing chain reaction, meaning this spill could have reached ‘criticality’. A simple explanation of ‘criticality’ is when a pooling of HEU material takes place. This particular spill, according to reports from the NRC itself, had 2 such opportunities and …”it was merely a matter of luck that a criticality accident did not occur”
It was reported by Matthew L. Wald in the NY Times July 6 that in fact this spill was so bad it kept the plant closed for 7 months last year. Nuclear Fuel Services, NFS, spokesperson Tony Treadway took extreme issue with this report saying NFS immediately and voluntarily shut down the ‘process’, and that numerous ‘other process operations within the plant were never “closed” due to the spill…
The potentially life-threatening spill was hidden for more than 13 months and US congressman John Dingell is demanding answers. Dingell is House energy Committee Chairman.
Since 9/11 the NRC has become increasingly more secretive claiming it is protecting the public from terrorists. This information begs the question’ “which terrorists?”
So, thanks to the DOE Memo, requesting “official use only” labels on all correspondence between NFS of Erwin and the NRC the public never heard of the accident. Wald wrote “after an investigation, the commission changed the terms of the factory’s license and said the public had 20 days to request a hearing…”
The public could not request a hearing because of course, that document was also labeled “Official Use Only” so the public couldn’t know about that either.
The “official use only’ stamp barred the public from even knowing about the document, let alone granting them their legal right to a hearing if they felt they were being adversely affected.
Chairman Dingell and subcommittee chair Bart Stupak’s demand letter in PDF form.
It would seem, the US is covering up its Nuclear accidents, while Japan is announcing theirs to the world.
The leak was from unit 6 which is located at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. This unit was already closed by coincidence for maintenance.
Officials at TEPCO, (Asia’s biggest utility) “The contaminated water was released into the ocean and had had no effect on the environment.”
Let’s deconstruct that sentance. Contaminated water. Released ocean. No effect on environment. All-righty then.
After today’s earthquake in Japan I started wondering about nuclear waste being dumped into our oceans.
This isn’t a subject I had given a lot of thought to as I’ve always heard about the controversy surrounding the safe or unsafe containment of Nuclear waste was on land.
Yes, I’ve heard about nuclear powered ocean vessels rotting away in the far reaches of Russia, but I never considered that anyone, under any circumstances, would just drop this poison into the water intentionally…anywhere.
The US dumped an estimated 112,000 drums of nuclear waste into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans before the Senate declared a moratorium on this bad behaviour in 1982. Of course and sadly, the US isn’t the only country guilty of dumping nuclear waste into the ocean.
Now a new scheme has been hatched. Nuclear waste would be packed in containers and shipped out to sea and then buried.
Greenpeace estimates there are 80 known ocean dump sites where nuclear waste is routinely dropped. This does not account for the millions of litres of radioactive waste being pumped into the ocean from nuclear processing plants.
The Oslo Convention negotiated in 1972 the first regional treaty to regulate the dumping of waste waters at sea. The nuclear industry blocked the inclusion of radioactive wastes within the jurisdiction of the convention. So, while it was deemed illegal to dump organic sewage sludge, dredging spoils and the like, it was perfectly fine to dump radio active waste. Later that same year the London Dumping Convention “high-level” radioactive waste dumping at sea was banned.
Who do we supposed was left to define what was meant by ‘high-level’ waste? Yes of course… The International Atomic energy Agency! That was too easy wasn’t it?
By the way, that earthquake in Japan? The early official word is, just over 1 liter of radio active water was lost into the ocean. I think I relieved myself of that much liquid after I woke up this morning. Seems like a really small amount. We’ll keep an eye on later numbers.
This of couse was a horrible event and we mean in no way to diminish the loss of life that has occured there. We wish those impacted solace.
What kind of applications are there for deep seawater? It would seem there is nothing this water can’t enhance, change into or be used ‘for’.
So how deep is ‘deep seawater’ and what could it be used for? Deep sea water is located at a depth of generally lower than 200 meters. It takes about 2,000 years for this water to circle the globe.
Once it was discovered that, for example, the Japanese would pay up to $33.50 for a single bottle of desalinated deep seawater all kinds of people started jumping on the deep seawater pipeline.
The NELHA upwells a mind boggling 88,000 metric tones of the stuff per day. Japan has started several deep seawater projects as well as Norway.
Once the attributes of this water were discovered, the race was on to develop new ways to exploit its properties. Can we develop new industires based around this here to fore unexploited resource?
Ice-cold deep seawater was found to be advantageous in the aquaculture of cold-water species unable to be farmed in tropical seawater climates. Other aquaculture benefits are deep seawater increases the ability to grow cold water organisms, disease control and it contains few viruses and pathogenic bacteria.
Other applications could be used in the food industry, in medical treatment facilities, and even cooling water for power stations.
The demand for this water is growing as private companies are inventing new uses for it. Commercial fisheries often don’t take their catch directly to market, holding it until prices go up. The need to keep fish alive and in sanitary conditions is another use for deep seawater.
The ease at which water temperatures can be controlled by mixing surface water with the cold deep seawater is another benefit being touted. How can further changing the surface temperatures of the sea be a good thing?
This up-welled water is even being run through pipes underground to cool the temeratures of soil. Cold weather crops such as spinach can be grown in parts of the world where it was never intended to be grown by nature.
This up-welled deep seawater accounts right now for only .05% of all water in the ocean, but it supports nearly 50% of all sea products being manufactured.
The prospect of pulling this water up and sending it all over the earth to cool homes, soil and even power plants sounds like a tricky idea to me. Growing fish and crops in places they were never intended to be grown sounds like a bad idea to me.
Yes, we need to find new ways of sustaining life on the planet, but what will be the unintended consequences of using these methods?
Only time will tell if man will become his own bycatch.
Did you know that the Bluefin Tuna is the most valuable fish in the ocean?
Thirty years ago this fish sold for as little as five cents a pound.
Today one single bluefin tuna can sell for between $10,000.00 to $20,000.00. In fact the highest price on record for a single bluefin tuna was $80,000.00 and that record could be broken as demand for them goes up, and their numbers decline.
A mature bluefin can weigh as much as 1,300 pounds, but we won’t be seeing many of those as time goes by. Most bluefin tuna never reach this size before they are caught. The average bluefin catch today is less than 1,000 pounds; not given the chance to mature.
One might think that at $75.00 for a single serving the demand just might go down. But, in Japan where demand is the highest in spite of the astronomical prices it is only now being considered to be a luxury. The Japanese consume more seafood per capita than any other country in the world.
The bluefin tuna can reach speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. They are one of the fastest swimmers in the ocean, but they can’t out swim demand.
The more we study these tuna the more we learn about their intelligence. These fish, like the dolphins, have social behavior patterns. They have been observed actually playing and socializing with each other and they have learned to cooperate with dolphins when feeding. In fact this sounds more civilized than some peoples of the earth.
Only 1 in 40 million bluefin tuna survive. This is a horrific number!
As the late Carl Sagan said “…A new consciousness is developing that sees the earth as a single organism, and recognizes that a single organism that is at war with itself is doomed”
Tomorrow we will look at Longline Fishing, which is how bluefin tuna is caught. In the meantime, opt out of that tuna sushi and have the rice and vegetables instead!
Something strange has been sucked out of its ocean habitat from 3,000 feet under the sea.
Is it a squidopus? Is it an octosquid?
What ever ‘it’ is ‘it’ was found caught in a filter in one of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority’s deep-sea water pipes. These pipes are pumping ice-cold seawater up from 3,000 feet down for desalinated bottled seawater.
The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) is currently hosting 3 desalinazation bottled water companies, with 4 more companies slated to tap into the NELHA pipeline soon. The Koyo USA Corp., is now the largest.
The claim to fame this water has is that it’s thousands of years old and free of modern impuritites. The desalinated water is marketed as a stress reducer, a weight loss aid, skin tone enhancer and digestive aid. Wow!
Deep sea desalinated bottled water is a multi-million dollar market recently developed. Until this year the market for ‘unsweetened’ water was tasting pretty sweet, but sales of the desalinated water have fallen 5% in the first three months of this year. While the same three months of 2006 showed a mind blowing 700% increase.
The decline may not indicate a lack of takers on the seawater market, but several other countries are breaking into this latest trend in bottled drinking water.
The octosquid or squidopus was found along with three rattail fish and half a dozen satellite jellyfish, and it stayed alive for three days. The little guy is now being examined at the University of Hawaii Manoa campus.
Two years ago NELHA filters trapped a fish that had never before been seen. NELHA cleans their filters every two to three months, but a more frequent cleaning may be in order these days.
This little creature had the ability to light up or glow while trying to frighten off predators. Sadly that tactic didn’t work on the NELHA pipes. DNA testing will be done at The Ohio State University.
Great! Mankind has discovered one more way to violate one more untouched portion of the planet. Now a whole new species can look forward to being sucked out of it’s ocean habitat in a new form of ‘bycatch’!
If these undersea creatures figure out how to avoid stationary pipes sucking in water, they will have to develop another skill-set; Avoiding moving pipes.
DSH International Inc., operating as Deep Ocean Hawaii began harvesting deep-sea drinking water from a ship positioned 3.4 miles west of Ko Olina.
This may be one more ‘good idea’ that will ultimately have devastating consequences to the environment. Decades from now we may discover we unintentionally wiped out the last hope to cure cancer…It was washed out of pipe filters as bycatch.
Meanwhile, we will discover all kinds of ‘new species’.
International laws without teeth are useless. Unless and until we can find a way to enforce laws protecting our oceans, our seas and their habitat the rapid decline or our planet will continue.
Our representivites and our governments work for us. Think about that for a moment. We are in charge, we need to demand that when a law is passed there also is passed a way to enforce that law, and to fund the enforcement of that law. Passing any law without funding or a plan for enforcement should be illegal.
