I wonder whether whaling advocates would be happy if I were to clean out my neighbor's well-kept vegetable garden of daikon and nasu. Are these same whaling advocates overjoyed when Korean crab boats clean out stocks in the Sea of Japan?
So why on earth does Japan maintain such a hypocritical position on whaling? If it is acceptable for Japanese whalers to come down to my backyard -- the South Pacific and Antarctic oceans -- and harvest whales, why shouldn't Korean crab boats help themselves to stocks along the Sea of Japan?
There has never been a Japanese cultural tradition of whaling in the South Pacific. In fact, Japanese whalers never left their coastal areas until well into the Meiji Era, and never made it to the South Pacific until the end of the war. So where on earth is this "tradition" of off-shore whaling?
The Americans and Europeans have a far longer history of blue water whaling than Japan, yet they are the ones who have given up their rights to do so. Adding insult to injury is the booming growth of whale-watching as an industry in many coastal areas of Japan. So Japan protects whales in its own waters -- while stealing them from mine?
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