Related: China supports whaling ban: official

     BEIJING, June 13 -- The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) environmental group has urged Japan to stop harpooning whales for scientific research, denouncing the slaughter as a cover-up for commercial sales of the mammals' meat.

 

(Photo source: cnradio.com/file)

    "It is extraordinary that Japan, one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world, continues to kill an estimated 650 whales a year using 1940s science," said Susan Lieberman, director of the WWF's global species program.

    "We call on Japan to live up to its reputation as a technologically and scientifically advanced nation, and put an end to 'scientific whaling,'" Lieberman said in a statement.

    The WWF has released a 44-page report about Japan's whaling programs. It says in the report that Japan should instead collect whale skin samples for genetic analysis using non-lethal darts.

    Japan says it needs to slaughter whales to understand their life cycles. It says the research will help determine whether stocks are robust enough to withstand commercial hunts.

    But the WWF said a biopsy dart could supply the evidence Japan needed. The long-term diet of a whale could be seen from a genetic sample of its skin, for example.

    "Japan's whaling program is about business and politics, but not sound science," Lieberman said.

    Whaling nations -- mainly Japan, Norway and Iceland -- are allowed to kill whales for scientific research under rules of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) even though the IWC imposed a moratorium on all commercial catches in 1986.

    Tokyo has threatened to quit the IWC if the organization fails at its next meeting in South Korea on June 20 to approve a set of rules that would allow limited commercial whaling. Enditem

(Agencies)