Japan plans for new whale factory ship

Fuente: SMH

Japan is planning to build a new, bigger factory ship to hunt whales in the Southern Ocean, according to Greenpeace and Japanese press reports.

The news came amid unconfirmed reports that Japan would not be killing endangered humpback whales during in its current hunt, as it had earlier declared.

The possibility was raised by the US ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, but the Japanese Foreign Ministry said today that no agreement to abandon the humpback hunt exists. The Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, has said he would welcome the humpback reprieve, but that one dead whale was too many.

The stated Japanese plan this year is to hunt 900 minke whales, 50 fin whales and 50 humpbacks.

The possibility of Japan building a new whaling factory ship to replace the Nisshin Maru, which was damaged by fire earlier this year, was first raised in May in Suisan Keizai, a Japanese fishing industry publication.

The newspaper said that a a new factory ship would be almost double the size of the Nisshin Maru, which displaces 8044 tonnes, and be capable of handling about 6000 tonnes of whale meat.

The Nisshin Maru needs to offload cargo to a companion ship during the annual hunt.

Greenpeace quizzed 23 Japanese ship building companies, and believes Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has been negotiating for the contract to build the new ship.

The company said it would consider building the ship "judging whether we receive the offer or not by taking the timing and other factors into consideration," according to Greenpeace.