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SCOTS UNIVERSITY IS LINKED TO JAPANESE SLAUGHTER OF WHALES

HELPLESS: A thrashing Minke whale turns the sea red after being harpooned

Sunday March 2,2008

By Kurt Bayer

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SCOTLAND’s oldest university has been accused of backing the Japanese government’s quest to hunt and kill whales.

St Andrews, where Prince William studied, has accepted payments of £40,000 to undertake studies for the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), the Japanese agency that directs the country’s whaling fleet.

Tomohiko Taniguchi, of the Japanese foreign ministry, said Japan’s research involves not only its own scientists, but “also those from St Andrews University.”

While St Andrews officials insist they don’t condone whaling, the cash received came from the sale of meat from whales hunted and killed as part of a “scientific research” programme.

Commercial whaling was banned in 1986, but Japan still slaughters 1,000 whales a year under a clause in International Whaling Commission (IWC) rules that allows killing for scientific purposes.

Scientists from the St Andrews centre for research into ecological and environmental modelling accepted £31,900 from the ICR in 2002 to measure the population of minke whales, using data gathered by Japan’s
hunting fleet.

An additional payment of £5,000 was made in 2005. Spokesman Willie Mackenzie of Greenpeace, which is campaigning for a total ban on whaling, described the link as “disgraceful”.

He said: “By taking this money, they are helping justify the Japanese whaling fleet’s hunt.”

Japan denies that whales are endangered and believes population estimates support its argument for the ban on commercial whaling to be overturned.

But critics claim the Japanese programme is a disguise for illegal commercial whaling, with whale meat ending up in shops and restaurants.

Professor Alan Miller, St Andrews University’s vice principal for research, said: “The university is carrying out a review of its policy for accepting research commissions to ensure there can be no inconsistency with our commitment to conservation.”

He added that the research had been recommended by the IWC.

The ICR claimed that while there has been a fall in the number of minke whales in the southern hemisphere, last estimated by the IWC in 1990 at 760,000, they remain “abundant”.

At an IWC meeting this week, Australia will call for the ban to be extended to ensure whaling cannot continue under the guise of scientific research.