S Korea 'scientific' whaling

By Unknown - Jul 5, 2012

South Korea has said it will start whaling under a loophole in a global moratorium that allows scientific research, outraging conservationist nations by using the same tactic as Japan.

The country came under pressure Thursday from outraged governments and environmentalists to scrap plans to kill whales under a "scientific" research programme denounced as a sham.

At sometimes heated talks of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Panama on Wednesday, South Korea said it would announce later how many whales it would kill and when but insisted that it did not need foreign approval.

Kang Joon-Suk, South Korea's head envoy, said consumption of whale meat "dates back to historical times" in his country and that the minke whale population had recovered since a 1986 global moratorium went into effect.

"Legal whaling has been strictly banned and subject to strong punishments, though the 26 years have been painful and frustrating for the people who have been traditionally taking whales for food," he told the conference.

'No excuse'

Whale meat remains popular in the South Korean coastal town of Ulsan, which serves meat from whales "accidentally" caught in nets. Activists have voiced suspicion that whales are often killed deliberately under the guise of accidents.

Kang said South Korea would conduct whaling in its own waters - in contrast to Japan, which infuriates Australia and New Zealand by killing hundreds of whales a year under the guise of research in Antarctic waters.

"I'm very disappointed by this announcement by South Korea. We are completely opposed to whaling, there's no excuse for scientific whaling," said Julia Gillard, Australia's Prime Minister told reporters.

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully said there was no need to harpoon whales to conduct effective research.

"[It] will have no more credibility than the so-called scientific programme conducted by Japan, which has long been recognised as commercial whaling in drag," he said.

New Zealand's commissioner, Gerard van Bohemen, charged that South Korea would also be putting whale populations at risk and said that Japan had not contributed to science after years of expeditions.