TOKYO, Japan — March 27, 2014 — The greatest threat to Japan's whaling industry may not be the environmentalists harassing its ships or the countries demanding its abolishment, but Japanese consumers. They've lost their appetite.
The amount of whale meat stockpiled for lack of buyers has nearly doubled over 10 years, even as anti-whaling protests helped drive catches to record lows. More than 2,300 minke whales worth of meat is sitting in freezers while whalers still plan to catch another 1,300 whales per year.
Low demand adds to the uncertainty that looms ahead of an International Court of Justice ruling expected Monday on Japan's whaling in the Antarctic Ocean. The whaling is ostensibly for research, but Australia argued in a lawsuit that it's a cover for commercial hunts.
The stated goal of the research, which began in 1987, is to show that commercial whaling is environmentally sustainable, but a growing question is whether it is economically sustainable.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at The San Diego Union-Tribune