Video: whales slaughtered by Japanese

Pictures of a whale and her calf bleeding from harpoon wounds and slung lifeless in the slipway of a Japanese whaling vessel have provoked outrage in Australia and inflamed diplomatic tensions.

Recent video and photographs taken from the decks of an Australian Customs vessel and released yesterday show the whales being pursued and then shot with explosive-tipped harpoons. They are seen thrashing about in bloodied Southern Ocean waters before being winched aboard the Yushin Maru 2 whaler.

Peter Garrett, the Australian Environment Minister, said that the pictures of the slaughter had made him feel sick. He seized on the images in an effort to galvanise opinion against the annual hunt and to build a consensus within the International Whaling Commission to close the legal loophole that allows scientific whaling.

He said that the apparent relationship between the whales provided proof of indiscriminate killing that could also be used in a potential legal challenge in an international court.

“I guess when I saw the photos I just felt a bit of a sick feeling as well as a sense of sadness,” Mr Garrett said.

“It’s very disappointing. It’s distressing when you think that it can take up to 15 minutes after a harpoon actually hits a whale for the whale to die. It’s even sadder when you consider there’s a calf involved.”

Japan’s whaling body retaliated swiftly and forcefully, accusing Australia of spreading emotional propaganda that could drive a wedge between the countries. The government-sponsored Institute of Cetacean Research denied that the whales were mother and calf and insisted that they had been caught randomly.

“The Government of Australia’s photographs and the media reports have created dangerous emotional propaganda that could cause serious damage to the relationship between our two countries,” Minoru Morimoto, the institute’s director-general, said.

“It is important the Australian public is not misled into believing false information.”

Whale biologists meeting in New Zealand last night told The Times that the picture showed a mother and calf. Such a young whale, aged less than a year, would only be associated with its mother.

Peter Harrison, director of Southern Cross University’s Whale Research Centre in Australia, said that the whalers had restrictions imposed on them in mid-January after confrontations with environmentalists. “What’s really happening here is . . . they’re running out of time and to get as many whales as possible they are killing anything they can see,” he said.

The Japanese comments were unusually strong for a country where senior government leaders have insisted that the whaling dispute will not damage the alliance between the countries.

Japan has staunchly defended its annual killing of more than 1,000 whales, conducted under a clause in International Whaling Commission rules that allows killing for scientific purposes. It says that whaling is part of Japanese culture and accuses Western countries of insensitivity.

Australia and other critics dismiss the Japanese programme as a disguise for commercial whaling, which is banned, and claim that whale meat ends up in supermarkets and restaurants.

Canberra is continuing to gather evidence, which could be presented in either the International Court of Justice in The Hague or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

A panel of independent legal experts commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare met in London in November and concluded that Japan’s whaling operations violated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

International criticism, led by Australia, forced Japan in December to call off its first hunt for humpback whales in 40 years.

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