Pursuit of whale, dolphin and porpoise species should be phased out, says Environmental Investigation Agency

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Some species of whale, dolphin and porpoise could be hunted into extinction unless Japan stops pursuing them in its coastal waters, a new report has warned.

Japan catches almost 17,000 smaller cetaceans off its coast every year – a tradition that its whalers say stretches back centuries.

The coastal hunts, which include the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, are no longer sustainable and should be phased out over the next 10 years, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said in a report launched in Tokyo on Thursday.

"The hunts in Japan's coastal waters specifically target nine small cetacean species, eight of them with government-set catch limits which are clearly unsustainable," said EIA campaigner and report co-author Sarah Baulch.

"For 2013, the catch limits allow the slaughter of 16,655 small cetaceans, but our analysis of available scientific data raises very serious concerns about the sustainability of these hunts."

The EIA estimates that more than 1 million whales, dolphins and porpoises have been killed in Japanese waters in the past 70 years.

The coastal hunt is the biggest of its kind in the world, yet "there is little transparency regarding the methods used to set catch limits and widespread concern that consumers are not informed that the resulting products are toxic with mercury and other contaminants," the conservation group said.

In most cases, Japan's catch limits are based on data collected more than 20 years ago and some species have already been hunted beyond the point where their numbers can recover, the report said.

The current quota is well below the 30,000 killed in Japan every year until limits were introduced in 1993. The coastal hunt is separate from Japan's annual slaughter of bigger whale species in the Antarctic.

The report blames growing demand for dolphins and other small cetaceans from aquariums and sea parks around the world, particularly in China: live dolphins, for example, can fetch between $8,400 and $98,000.

Catch limits for the Dall's porpoise species are 4.7-4.8 times higher than the safe threshold, the report said; catches of the striped dolphin, meanwhile, have dropped from over 1,800 in the 1980s to about 100.

"Despite strong indications of population declines, there appears to be little formal monitoring by the government of Japan," Baulch said.

The EIA also cited the risk to Japanese consumers of eating meat and blubber with methyl mercury levels many times higher than the safe limit.

"Japan's stubborn reluctance to relinquish this archaic industry is not only driving threatened marine species towards extinction, but is endangering the health of its people," said Sakae Hemmi of the Japan-based group Elsa Nature Conservancy.