Whaling limits hurt Japanese pride
Coastal people say bans and limits discriminate against their tradition
By The Associated Press
WADA, Japan (AP) -- A whale's bleeding carcass bobbed in the surf, a steel harpoon jutting from its side. Then butchers at this Japanese fishing village went to work, turning a motorized winch to haul the beast ashore.
On the flensing floor, the men blessed it with rice wine -- then hacked through blubber and sinew with long-handled knives, slicing vermilion flesh from the massive spine. Blood gushed from the 30-foot Baird's beaked whale like water from a hydrant.
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"Coastal people have been eating whale for 400 years and we have a right to decide what we eat," declared Yoshinori Shoji, head of the Gaibo Hogei whaling company, based in Wada, a two-hour drive east of Tokyo.
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A Japanese proposal to win "community whaling" status that would have allowed limited minke whale hunts failed at an IWC meeting in May. Critics argue that Japan's coastal operations are strictly commercial, using modern industrial methods such as mechanized harpoon guns, while community hunts are conducted by aboriginal people as ceremonies or to harvest a vital food source.
"Long ago, they used their own boats and caught whales with nets. But since the early 1900s, they've been using methods imported from Norway," said Junichi Sato, of Greenpeace Japan. "So it's not at all as if they were preserving a tradition."
whole story:
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=181010"Lucas, along with five others, including Hayden Panettiere who stars in US TV action show Heroes, face arrest warrants for ``interfering with international commerce''.
What about Japan's violating of the international moratorium on commercial whaling in the name of "science" or otherwise?
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