Japanese Whaling Attacked in Court

A small boat from the Sea Shepherd vessel, Steve Irwin, makes a reconnaissance trip past the Japanese whaling ship the Shonan Maru #2 near Freemantle last year. Photo: Reuters

Australia mounted an attack on the scientific basis claimed for Japan's Antarctic whaling as it broadened its case for a ban by the International Court of Justice.

The 26-year-old Japanese program, conducted under a self-awarded special scientific permit, has taken upwards of 10,000 whales, the court heard on Thursday.

Counsel and witnesses  for Australia told the court  in The Hague that the program, currently known as JARPA II, had made a negligible contribution to science.

''JARPA II is not a program of science, it is a parody of science,'' said Professor James Crawford, QC. ''It is designed to keep Japan in the whaling business, come what may.''

Philippe Sands, QC, told the court that French thinker Jules Henri Poincare said science was built upon facts, as a house was built of stones.

But a simple accumulation of facts was no more science than a heap of stones was a house, Poincare had said.

Japanese whalers may have collected data on thousands of body parts, but their program was nothing more than a collection of data.

''It is a heap of stones, not a house,'' Professor Sands said.

''A quarter of century has passed, thousands of whales have been killed, and Japan is unable to offer any discernible progress.''

Professor Sands said as the case was being prepared through written submissions, Japan had refused to respond to criticisms of its science.

''Their view may be summarised in a simple form: 'if we say it's science, it's science','' Professor Sands said.

Australian Antarctic program chief scientist Nick Gales told the court that Japanese whalers' examination of such measures as stomach contents and earplugs had added nothing to what was already known about what minke whales ate, or their age at death.

JARPA II's ''contribution to the conservation and management of minke whales is negligible'',  Dr Gales said.

American scientist Marc Mangel, of the University of Southern California, said Japan's approach to setting a quota of 850 minke whales in JARPA II  was ''absolutely not'' scientifically justified.

''I have been unable to understand how sample sizes have been set in JARPA II,'' Professor Mangel said.

He said the Japanese whaling program lacked any testable hypothesis, and no serious attempt appeared to have been made to explore non-lethal research methods.

After eight years of  JARPA II, he said the  two internationally peer reviewed scientific papers produced were a ''woefully low'' level.

Read More... http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/science-of-japanese-whaling-attacked-in-court-case-20130628-2p0me.html#ixzz2XTQPmJTS

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