Before considering whether the research conducted by the ICR is financially profitable in its own right, let us examine a more sophisticated form of attack which is not based on mere dollars and cents. This argument contends that the real purpose of the research is to keep markets, hardware and skills in place in anticipation of better days ahead. It is impossible to discount this argument entirely, but on close examination we find that the evidence is entirely circumstantial and never compelling.

Ostensibly at least, Kyodo Senpaku's business is chartering out vessels and crews, and this business has two obvious and immediate benefits to Kyodo Senpaku: it provides jobs and it brings in fees. However, there is no question of the short-term interests of a small group of whalers being the raison d'etre of the ICR's research, and we will therefore put these considerations on the back burner for the moment.

What we have to consider is the fact that if Japan is ever allowed to resume commercial whaling in the Antarctic, it will be Kyodo Senpaku (or a revamped version thereof) which will reap the harvest. What we have to ask ourselves is whether the hardware and human resources presently employed can be viewed as a viable basis for restarting whaling some time in the future, and whether the present line of business will enable Kyodo Senpaku to continue operating profitably in the meantime. Conversely we can ask whether it would be that much harder to resume commercial whaling in, say, 10 years, if Kyodo Senpaku did not exist, i.e. from scratch.

Let us begin by considering the role of the Fisheries Agency in keeping Kyodo Senpaku alive, and what might be seen as the tangible benefits of doing so.

Job Creation?

Kyodo Senpaku has a staff of about 320 people, including administrators and seafarers, and all of these directly or indirectly depend for their salaries on the patronage of the ICR and the Fisheries Agency.

Since 1987, the ICR has chartered two converted catchers annually for the IWC/IDCR cruises, and two or three catcher vessels and one factory ship for its own research program. In 1990-91, the IWC/IDCR cruise provided jobs for 34 seafarers, while the ICR program gave jobs to 173. For the following season the factory ship was replaced by a smaller vessel (see p28) and the latter figure fell to 150.

Though the majority of Kyodo Senpaku's sailors participate in cetacean research of one form or another, this work is only seasonal. When they return from the Antarctic, therefore, some join vessels chartered to the Fisheries Agency. In 1991, six vessels were employed in this way, with crews of about 17 each. As there are more sailors than positions at this time of year, some are left with nothing to do. Though they continue drawing their salaries, they lose the bonus that is customarily given to sailors when at sea.

Clearly, this patronage by the Fisheries Agency during the off-season is vital to the viability of Kyodo Senpaku, and it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that it may be contrived for this very reason. However, it is not entirely a case of artificial job creation. As the Antarctic whaling season never spanned more than half a year anyway, pelagic catcher vessels have always been available for other duties, and the government has been chartering them for various purposes since as long ago as 1950 - when whalers were still rich and there was no need for charity. Not as many vessels were chartered in the past as now, but it is not an entirely new form of employment.

What, then, might the motive be for the Fisheries Agency to provide underemployed whalers with jobs? There are a few possibilities, and the probable answer is that a mixture of motives are at work.

The most popular hypothesis among critics of the research is that the government wishes to keep in place a workforce in anticipation of a resumption of commercial whaling. This is also the most easily disproven. Under Kyodo Senpaku policy, retirement for workers is mandatory at age 55 and for officers at 58. On the 1990-91 cruise, the average age of the crew at the time of departure was more than 47 (Table 3). Thirty-six were facing retirement in five years or less, whilst for 13 it was the final cruise. Clearly it is not these whalers who will form the future of whaling.

Table 3: Age Composition of 1990-91 Crews

Notes:
1) All crew except two belonged to Kyodo Senpaku. (1 trainee on loan from Taiyo; 1 doctor)
2) Complements excludes researchers, research assistants and Fisheries Agency inspector.
3) Ages are at time of embarkation.

A more convincing motive for the Fisheries Agency to provide jobs for aging whalers is to allow them to pass on their skills to a new generation. It would indeed be difficult to restart a whaling operation from scratch in 10 years' time without any teachers. Having said that, however, a sense of urgency has not been apparent in the efforts made to balance the equation, i.e. to recruit students.

The flow of new recruits into Japan's whaling industry came to a sudden and complete halt in 1982 when the IWC voted for a moratorium, and for a decade there was no new blood. This represented a real threat to the future of commercial whaling (and subsequently to the ICR, which, as we will see, could not conduct its research without whalers), but for the first five years of the ICR's research program, neither the Fisheries Agency, nor the ICR, nor Kyodo Senpaku made any move to alleviate the problem. This is not to say that they were unaware of an impending manpower crisis, but the government felt this was the responsibility of Kyodo Senpaku, and Kyodo Senpaku was reluctant to make a move. The reason for this hesitation was concern that they might be building for a future that did not exist. Though Japan's labour market has become more fluid in recent years, lifetime employment in one company is still the norm, and by mutual consent this system places as great an obligation on the employer as on the employee. Understandably, Kyodo Senpaku was reluctant to provide guarantees it might not be able to keep.

Then in spring 1992, Kyodo Senpaku decided it could wait no longer, and recruited two university graduates and 16 high-school graduates. The significance of this recruiting drive for the future of whaling cannot be ignored. However, from the viewpoint of government motivation it must be remembered that Kyodo Senpaku has been obliged to bear all responsibility itself. Had the preservation of whaling skills been a top priority of the Fisheries Agency, one might have expected the ICR to have been pressured into recruiting and supplying trainees to Kyodo Senpaku, but this was not the case.

A third possible motive for the Fisheries Agency to provide jobs is one which could have no bearing on the future of the whaling industry, and for which, once again, there is little supporting evidence. However, it is worth noting that, as a secondary consideration, the government may wish to help whalers made redundant by its policies.

Japanese whaling communities are almost without exception isolated and heavily dependent on the sea for survival, and since the end of commercial whaling all have experienced hardship due to a lack of alternative employment. In the opinion of these communities, responsibility for this state of affairs rests squarely with the government. It was their prime minister who, in 1984, faced with a US threat of trade sanctions, first placed on the bargaining table the possibility of withdrawing Japan's objection to the moratorium. And in 1987, after the Fisheries Agency had proposed launching a scientific research program, it was their prime minister who again bowed to US pressure. The original research proposal called for taking 825 minkes and up to 50 sperm whales per season, and provided a precise explanation of why these sample sizes were required. But the prime minister, concerned at the American mood and without consulting the program's designers, publicly stated that he considered even half that number to be too many. The Prime Minister's Office subsequently "requested" the Fisheries Agency to revise the program, the sperm whales were dropped and the number of minkes was slashed to 300. Since the future of whaling now lay in science, any tampering with the interests of science was a slap in the face for the whaling communities. Once again, their interests had been placed second behind the need to uphold Japan's international image.

So what signs are there that the government feels a sense of responsibility for the consequences of its actions? The Fisheries Agency provides a few jobs aboard chartered vessels, but these must be seen in the larger picture, and the larger picture reveals little remorse and even less active support.

A few people in high places genuinely do care for the lot of whalers, notably bureaucrats in the Fisheries Agency and politicians with whaling communities in their constituencies. But broad support is noticeably lacking, and particularly in the places that count. In the powerful Foreign Ministry, for example, not a few bureaucrats would be quite happy for Japan to give up whaling once and for all, and their reasoning is as self-centred as that of the unspeakable prime minister of the 1980s: it's not a question of concern about whales, it's simply that it is Japan's embassies overseas which are in the direct line of fire from opponents.

So the beleaguered whaling communities have received almost no assistance from central government, and even if the jobs on research and inspection vessels have been created as a form of welfare, they are far too few in number to arrest the collapse of whole towns which once depended on whaling. In other words, the evidence is extremely weak that the government has created a handful of jobs out of a sense of guilt.

If, indeed, the jobs for whalers aboard inspection vessels are artificial creations, the reason for the Fisheries Agency's largesse is most likely as follows. In 1987, the agency charged the ICR with providing the IWC with evidence that would lead to a lifting of the moratorium. No great consideration would have been given to the manpower situation in the event that this should take several years to achieve. The priority was for the ICR to be able to do its research, and for this it would necessary to ensure the viability of Kyodo Senpaku. In other words, the future of the whaling industry depended directly on the ICR and, by extension, on Kyodo Senpaku. Though the new recruits at Kyodo Senpaku may be the commercial whalers of the future, in terms of the task at hand, i.e. the research, the Fisheries Agency views Kyodo Senpaku as a tool, a means to an end.

Why Whalers Are Vital

Why, we must now ask, is Kyodo Senpaku so vital to the ICR's research? The fact that most of the people involved in the research are ex-whalers has given rise to considerable scepticism, and no simple explanation will remove all doubts in this regard. But it can and should be noted that whalers are uniquely qualified to make valuable contributions to many aspects of cetacean research. And if a research program happens to call for the collection of samples, they become virtually indispensable.

Let us begin with the officers aboard the research vessels - not indispensable certainly, but the best men for the job nonetheless. Although the licences held by these officers are the same as those held by officers on, say, trawlers or cargo ships, differences in practical experience mean the men themselves are not freely interchangeable. For example, the captain of a whaling mother ship is required frequently to relocate to dock with far-flung catchers wanting to deliver whales or take on supplies. The captain of a cargo ship has no such demands placed on him, merely cruising in a straight line from A to B. As Kyodo Senpaku has a monopoly on officers with Antarctic whaling experience, it would make no sense for the ICR to rent the vessels without the crews and try to source officers elsewhere.

Then there is cost: Kyodo Senpaku officers are the cheapest on the market. Until about 1970, whaling crews commanded high salaries, but as quotas fell they went into a tailspin and were soon among the lowest. Further pay cuts were avoided under Kyodo Hogei due to the rising market value of whale products, but when Kyodo Senpaku was created in 1987, those who chose to join the new company had their basic salary cut by a further 20%.

As for the tasks assigned to the rank and file of Kyodo Senpaku crews, let us begin with the sighting and counting of whales. The ICR research program involves counting the number of whales along predetermined tracklines, from which an estimate is extrapolated of the total population in a given area. Counting may sound easy, but it's not. To spot whales at a distance of 3 nautical miles (the width of the trackline), often among breaking waves, one needs more than twenty-twenty vision. One must know exactly what to look for, and having spotted a school should be able to count the number of whales (complicated by the fact they do not all surface at the same time) and identify the species.

To illustrate the difficulties involved, take the example of an expedition to the Antarctic in 1980-81 by a vessel of the Tokyo University of Fisheries. Tasks included sighting and identifying whale species, these being assigned to the helmsman, two inexperienced cadets, and a member of Kyodo Hogei, Shogo Tanaka, with many years' experience aboard whaling vessels. In his report(1) Tanaka recounts that: "Prior to the beginning our research I consulted with all crew and students in detail about sighting methods, identification of whale species, behaviours of whales, etc., in order to collect records as reliable as possible." Yet the end result was that Tanaka notched up no less than 73% of all minke whale sightings. He acknowledged that had he not been present, some of his sightings would probably have been made by the others, but as for species identification he concluded that in practice for the non-experts this was "almost impossible". A major factor affecting the efficiency of each of the spotters seems to have been the ability to spot the blows of small whale species. This was suggested by the fact that while his sightings peaked at a distance of about 1.5 miles from the ship, for the others it was from 0.5 - 1.0 mile, indicating they were tending to spot whales by the emergence of their bodies.

Over three months in the Antarctic I learned to identify sperm whales under virtually any conditions by the unique inclination of their blow. But for all other species I was prone to mistakes, and in particular when it came to distinguishing minkes from the slightly smaller beaked whales abundant in some parts of the Antarctic. The whalers, however, could tell at an instant.

But it is the catching of whales where whalers come into their own. Harpooning is a finely honed skill which requires expert knowledge of whales' swimming behaviour, split-second timing and perfect aim, and you must shoot from a moving platform. Without harpooners it would be impossible to take samples. If you were to hand a biologist a harpoon gun he'd shoot himself straight in the foot.

Then there are the flensers aboard the mother ship who cut up the whales and send the edible parts to the freezers. Though butchery has nothing to do with science, the master flensers double as technicians for the ICR scientists, locating and extracting a wide range of biological samples. This is not simply a question of making use of the human resources available. Dissecting whales is not like dissecting rats in the laboratory, and flensers make the best dissectors of whales. The cutting spades used on whales are as sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, but their length and weight call for a completely different technique - you cut with your body rather than your hands. Master flensers also have expert knowledge of a whale's anatomy, acquired through years spent locating the various innards which Japanese epicures relish, and thus make ideal research technicians

The Fleet

The key to the health of any company is its assets. These include human resources, and as we have already seen, the advanced age of Kyodo Senpaku's workforce places it in a precarious position for the future. But unique as a whaler's skills may be, for any fleet operator the most important assets are the vessels. So important, indeed, one could argue that the key to the future of Japanese pelagic whaling is the fleet of Kyodo Senpaku. Even if working for the ICR were a loss-maker, it might be worth doing just to keep the fleet in a state of operational readiness. Short-term profits aside, therefore, let us consider the mid-term sense of maintaining the present fleet.

The service life of a ship can be likened to that of a car or other machine. For a time things run smoothly and cost-effectiveness is at a maximum. Then problems arise - repairs are needed, engines begin to consume more fuel, and parts must be replaced. When the cost of maintenance and running exceeds a certain level, it becomes more economical to buy a new vessel. Shipbuilders, meanwhile, hope to persuade operators to buy sooner rather than later by continuously upgrading their products.

Remaining competitive in a free marketplace, therefore, requires periodic replacement of vessels. But for the last two decades of commercial whaling, a competitive marketplace did not exist, and furthermore, falling profits discouraged operators from ordering new vessels. This explains why the fleet which sailed in 1990-91 consisted of a 43-year-old factory ship and catchers ranging in age from 19 to 32. In a climate of free competition, such as exists in most fisheries, such a fleet would make no business sense whatsoever.

But even if commercial whaling in the Antarctic should resume, and if more than one nation should wish to participate, the law of the jungle will not prevail. As in the years prior to the moratorium, quotas will be allocated and some trading may occur, but there is no possibility whatsoever of the free-for-all of earlier decades being allowed to recur. Under such a circumstance, the question we must ask is not whether the present fleet would be competitive in a free market, as this would not exist, but simply whether Kyodo Senpaku would replace it were commercial whaling to resume. If the answer is "no", then the research may be a guise for keeping the fleet operational. If the answer is "yes", then this theory is another red herring.

Since 1991 this question has actually been moot, as Kyodo Senpaku acquired a replacement factory ship and sent the Nisshin Maru No. 3 to a Shanghai scrapyard. The old vessel never was being kept in trim for the future. Built in 1947, she was a veritable rust bucket and would have gone to the scrapyard soon under any circumstances.

The replacement is a converted stern trawler, the 7,060-g/t Chikuzen Maru, acquired secondhand from Nissui and renamed the Nisshin Maru for continuity's sake. She cost Y7,000 million ($53.8 nil.) new in 1986, but exchanged hands for a very reasonable Y1,550 million ($11.9 nil.). Some Y400 million ($3.1 mil.) was subsequently spent refitting her. Since she will be used, for the present at least, exclusively for research, one might wonder at Nissui's apparent generosity. As a shareholder in Kyodo Senpaku, could Nissui be looking toward a resumption of commercial whaling and short-term profits? The truth is quite the opposite.

The Chikuzen Maru was built in 1986 to fish in US waters, but due to the subsequent scrapping of allocations for foreign fleets by the US she almost immediately became surplus to requirements - along with several other trawlers owned by Nissui and other Japanese fishing companies. An idle trawler, of course, is not an asset but a liability, and to judge from the depressed state of the secondhand trawler market in recent years, Nissui can count itself fortunate to find a buyer at any price. Far from being an investment in the future of whaling, therefore, the sale of the Chikuzen Maru was, for Nissui, a case of cutting losses.

For Kyodo Senpaku, of course, the new vessel most definitely represents an investment in the future. But the important thing to remember is that the factory ship which sailed for the first four seasons of research never had any place in future plans. Accusations of keeping a fleet in place began before the factory ship was replaced, and therefore in a sense have been shown to be wrong.

The catchers are a different matter altogether. The three now being used by the ICR were built in 1958, 1962 and 1971, and if today were the prosperous 1960s they would most probably have been replaced by now. Yet replacements cannot be anticipated any time soon, and certainly not until commercial whaling resumes. The reason is cost. There is no secondhand market for these highly specialised vessels, and unlike a factory ship, one cannot simply convert a vessel built for another purpose. Replacements would have to be newbuildings, and Kyodo Senpaku does not have the funds or sufficient prospect thereof to embark on a newbuilding program alone. New ships will only be ordered when commercial whaling is very definitely on the table.

What this means is that if commercial whaling resumes in the next few years, the present fleet - with the new factory ship, not the old one - will stay in place. But if commercial whaling should not resume for another 10 years only the factory ship and perhaps one catcher can be expected to survive. The catchers have a future but not a long one.

We cannot, therefore, conclude that the research is an excuse for keeping the fleet in a state of operational readiness. The factory ship has already been replaced, an the catchers have not been replaced in part because they cannot be replaced.

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