C.W. Nicol

It wasn't an anti-whaling song, but I was troubled at the excesses of those years, and I really did want to hear the whalers' tales. For the last two years I have devoted myself to listening to them, at a time when the life or death of the industry is at sake, and the excesses of the past are now strictly regulated.

Forgive me if I make a jump.
The other day, while hanging on a strap in a crowded train going from downtown Tokyo to a tiny apartment I rent now in the suburbs, I was bothered by one of those awful depressions that seemed to chase its own tail like a nightmare dog. Perhaps part of it was that I have reservations about the attractions of Tokyo, and would prefer to be back in Taiji, but it wasn't only that.

I go downtown only rarely. At the most, once a week, to see my Tokyo editors and to maybe practice a little karate. This time I'd gone downtown to give a 'professional seminar' at the Foreign Press Club. At the urging of a journalist friend I had volunteered to talk about what I had seen on the 1979-80 Antarctic whaling season.

My experience had been with the Japanese fleet, and part from the Russian observer and his interpreter, I had been the only westerner aboard - the only man there with roots in the west, with a fluency in Japanese, and with moral and spiritual independence. Nobody paid me to go, in other words. It was an exciting experience, and I felt I had learnt a lot which might be of interest to others, especially in view of the current furor about whaling.

Anyway, I went and I saw, and I asked and I listened, and at times I even argued and poked.

I must confess to a prejudice I couldn't help holding about 'factory ship operations' for although I had been involved with whales and whaling for a long time, I had never even seen a 'factory ship' and the very name sounded ugly in my native English. Previously I'd seen whales and the taking of them at shore-based operations. I'd sailed from small ports, coming back with the catch. I'd never been to the Antarctic on a floating factory. Was it all as ugly and inhuman as the name...'factory ship'?

I have long since considered any invitation or non-violent challenge as a 'dancing lesson from god' and when I was invited - almost challenged - to go down south, I jumped at the chance. At least, thought I, there would be penguins and icebergs.

There was, of course, much more.
But anyway, this going-home-on-the-Tokyo-transit-system-depression was worse than it had been before. I had gone early to the Press Club and had been invited there to lunch. Apart from being a work centre for foreign journalists, the Press Club is also a social gathering spot for expatriates.

Among the occupants of my table were a couple of 'old Japan hands'. Each gentleman was getting on in age, and had been in Japan for thirty or forty years or so. One of them, a lively old gentleman in his seventies, announced -

"The Japanese, I can assure you, do not eat whales." He had been in Japan much longer than I and people listened to him. I tried politely to argue, for I knew fully well he was absolutely wrong, but one cannot refute an 'old Japan hand'. Yet, I tried to say I knew many Japanese who ate whale, in many forms. I said that I had lived among people to whom whale was a very important part of their diet, and that even in Tokyo, in my local fish market they sold whale. I said I could take him to almost any fish market and show him whale. But it was pointless.

Rather than make a heated argument, I shut up, then immediately after realized that this was exactly what I had frequently criticized my Japanese friends for doing.

My mind spun back, as I clung to the strap on the train, thinking of those days of the Antarctic voyage.

The 'Matsukaze Maru' was a freezer vessel, with deep refrigerated holds. I sailed aboard her from Tokyo on January 8, 1980. Three months before that I had gone to see off the whaling fleet, who departed in the teeth of a typhoon in mid-October of 1979.

We joined the whaling fleet in sight of Antarctica on a clear day in early February. The sea was calm, visibility unlimited, and whales were being taken by the four catchers right in sight of the 'Dai San Nisshin Maru'. In the Japanese language this ship was a 'bosen' which means 'mother-ship', which gives quite a different image from the name that had bothered me, 'factory ship'. That may be just semantics to some, but to us, far from outside help, the ship was not just a factory, for we lived and travelled with her, and depended upon her for our very lives.

On that day of February 4, there were about a hundred icebergs in sight, most of them huge blue-white plateaux against which the black-sided, double-funnelled silhouette of the 'Dai San Nisshin Maru' seemed like that of a toy ship. It was morning. From the black ship came white steam. The blue sky edged to an almost fluorescent white from the glare of the continental ice sheet. From here and there I could discern the muffled thud of cannon shots as the four catchers went about their business.

After lunch that day, and after saying thanks and having presents thrust upon me by the crew of the Matsukaze Maru, I was carried over to the big ship by launch and lifted aboard.

First impressions are always vivid, and a flood of them came to me. There were twenty or so whales on the deck. Men working busily, winches whining, cables straining, meat and strips of blubber being passed forward. Then there were friendly men to cart off my baggage (heavy with books and notes) and to see me to a cabin. Everybody was busy, I noted, but all took a second to look up and smile, some to bow slightly, some even to call out a welcome.

That evening I was treated to a feast in the officers' mess. We had many types of whale sashimi - thinly sliced and dipped in soya sauce and grated ginger, as well as a sukiyaki of whale meats and vegetables.

In welcoming speeches I was told I had the freedom of the ship, and that I could go where I wanted, talk to anybody I chose. They were confident that I would write only the truth about what I saw, heard and felt.

Once upon a time I had been a marine mammal technician for the Canadian government. I had worked on whales, mostly fin whales. I decided to start my information gathering at what I was familiar with - the collection of scientific data for the assessment of whale stocks. Were these guys doing a good job? Was the data accurate? Did they miss anything? Did they get lax if whales came in thick and fast and the weather was cold and blowing, with snow or rain?

I observed the collection of data every day I was on the mother-ship during the hunt. I would turn up at erratic times; in the early morning; at noon, when most people were having lunch; late at night when the last whales were being processed. Never did I ever see even the faintest hint of laxness. It is true that I became good friends with scientist, Mr. Kato of the Whales Research Institute who was working under the banner of the IWC, and with Mr. Ishido, chief inspector from the Japanese government's Department of Fisheries, but apart from the friendship we had I was able to admire the work they did.

Each and every whale was meticulously and accurately measured and recorded. It might be snowing, or the ship rolling and pitching, but the data was always good. From the time that the first whales were winched onto the decks until long after those same decks had been hosed down, Mr. Kato was always there in his dirty old anorak and his green helmet, always enthusiastic about his job.

Another thing that impressed me was the rapport between scientists, inspectors and workers. They drank tea together at breaks, and the men were always patient and polite, eager to help obtain samples or to expose an awkward part for easier examination.

As with my own experience, never was there any hint of management trying to come between the workers and the fact gatherers.

I asked too about the tagging voyages, on which Mr. Kato had sailed. I wondered why so few tags were being recovered. In the 1978-79 season, 728 tags had been successfully fired into minke whales. Again, in the 1979-80 period, another 710 minke whale tags had been successfully fired. Yet so far only five tags, and all five were of the first tagging session, have been recovered.

On the mother-ship they had test fired tags at varying ranges to see how they would penetrate and to gauge whether there would be any danger of the tags working out. From the results, that would seem unlikely. Were the flensers missing them? That too was unlikely, and even if they did, the meat graders and packers would not. As for the tags being lost somehow in blubber, that too was not likely, for most of the blubber was being used for food, and not for oil, and anyway the blubber was only a few centimetres thick. As a further check, the boilers were very carefully inspected at the end of the season.

Mr. Sato, the production manager, took me down into the bowels of the ship where blocks of frozen meat were being packed into cardboard cartons. As the blocks ran along the conveyor belts, he slipped a tiny tack into a block of meat. Half a minute later the whole system came to a halt. The men removed the offending block and found the tack. That was the final check - a sensitive metal detector.

I can only presume that a lot of whales were tagged, and that these whales are still swimming free, and that only a small percentage of the whales were being taken.

On the big ship, apart from the upper decks where one could see whales at close quarters, or spot sea birds, seals and other whales in the ocean, or gaze at icebergs and the great white frozen cliffs of Antarctica, the most exciting part of the ship was the operations room, the fleet manager's working place.

From around five each morning the catchers would call in their morning greetings and begin the hunt. From then on, each movement, sighting, chase and kill, as well as ice and weather reports and any other factor affecting the fleet would be radioed in as such matters arose. Great charts were spread out, and on the bulkheads were the catch record black boards. I could sit out of the way in a corner with a cup of coffee, listening to the fast conversations and cryptic comments of the men on the high open bridges.

"Catcher number eight. Sighted ten whales, now following. Direction East North East. Five miles from mother-ship."

"Thank you number eight."

The fleet manager's assistant marks the record on the big chart.

"Catcher number five. Heading North East. Sighted something."

"Catcher number eight. Chasing ten minke whales." And so it went on all day until the day's hunt was stopped and the next move planned, charted and relayed, including frequent sighting runs.

The fleet was not simply hitting concentrations of whales. It was moving steadily through three areas, starting somewhere south of New Zealand and ending up at 0°, going anti-clockwise around the continent, in those icy areas preferred by the minkes. By constantly moving this way, the scientists would have a sample from various stocks, and no single group would be hit harder than the rest.

My first trip on a catcher that season was on February 10th, when I went aboard the 'Number 1 Kyomaru'. It was in 1966, off the coast of Newfoundland, that I sailed with her older sister, 'Number 17 Kyomaru'. The gunner of the 'Number 1 Kyomaru' was a Taiji man, with a typical whaler's name. In fact, I already had studied his ancestors, who could be traced back for three hundred years, famous harpooners from the days when they hunted with hand irons and rope nets. His ancestors were the men entitled to a name ending with the word 'Daiyu'... Kisadaiyu, Iwadaiyu, Idaiyu and so on. Having lived in Taiji for a year or so, researching my novel, these men seemed very real to me. I knew too that Gunner Seko's grandfather had hunted pilot whales until he was seventy years old, and that Gunner Seko himself had been thirty seasons in the Antarctic, spending at least half his life with the bucking steel decks of a catcher beneath his feet.

When the catcher came alongside to pick me (and a more vital load of harpoons) up, I got into the big basket, and with a couple of jokes from the bosun was swung out over the side and down. The bosun's timing was perfect, and I was quite safe, and scrambled out to see the grinning, tanned faces of the deck crew and the second officer.

After being shown to a cabin, I dumped my bag and made my way up to the open bridge, to watch the four whales being transferred and hauled up the stern ramp, and to look at the 'Dai San Nisshin Maru' from another angle. Way up on the wings of the high bridge, 21 metres above the water, we could see the small figures of the fleet manager and his assistant as they came out to give the whaler's two armed wave. The men on the catcher answered. Just then a voice like a bull-horn called out a welcome to me, and I turned to see Gunner Seko himself. He is a big man, as many Taiji men are, bigger than me (and a long time ago I got my pocket money by wrestling, as a pro') and his grin is as wide as his shoulders. We went down for coffee, and to talk about whales and Taiji, while Captain Tokuhiro took the ship out for a sighting run.

Inevitably again I was asked about the western antiwhaling movement. It becomes more and more difficult for me to explain each time. What I really wished to be doing was to be observing and listening, eventually writing, but that is not always possible. The whalers could not understand why they were being attacked so much, and again I heard the same arguments about national food preferences and traditions.

Several men - officers and crew, for there is no rank discrimination aboard a Japanese catcher - crowded around to question and argue.

At the very beginning, I tried to tell them, when the anti-whaling was first being taken up by groups such as Greenpeace, there was a majority of sincere and sensitive people who truly believed in conservation. I felt, during those days, that I had friends among them. I went to their homes, they to mine, and we argued and discussed at open meetings. In those days it was possible to hold dialogues. Yet in a short while it became impossible to say anything in defence of whaling and whalers without being insulted. Anti-whaling material began to sound and read more like propaganda, with a very clear racist trend to it. (In all fairness, I must admit that the more responsible among them saw and deplored this and have since done a lot to try to correct it.)

Now with the Japanese whalers, who are indisputably the elite of that nation's fishing fleets, it has always been possible to discuss, criticise and argue without them getting emotional and nasty. As for me - I might be sympathetic with them, and I was a guest on their vessels, but I had come to find out what they really felt. Therefore I poked and probed - and I speak and understand Japanese well enough to do so - in a manner that I could never do with the people that attack them.

The next morning was, as the bosun's voice was relayed from the crow's nest over the loudspeaker system throughout the ship, I got up and went on deck. It was calm and cold, and there were several pods of minke whales in sight. As my eyes got used to the faint feather of mist which is the minke whale's excuse for a blow, I began to see them. Here a group of ten. There twenty. Over yonder fifty.

In Tokyo, I had been told that once in Antarctica I would see the breath of minke whales, "hanging above the sea like curtains". I dismissed it in my mind as another fishermen's story, but the simile was a good one.

By noon our ship had taken ten whales and had passed them all to the mother-ship. The total for the fleet that day would be limited to forty. We had lunch, then went on a sighting run, all four catchers on set courses.

From the crow's nest to the horizon one could see eight miles. From the bridge one could see six and a half miles to the horizon. I stayed on bridge for the rest of the day, sitting beside Gunner Seko, eyes straining through binoculars. Over the radio we could hear the other ships reporting whales. I spotted a group of fifty, and then, to my great excitement I saw a group of over two hundred minke whales, swimming line abreast, at full speed, oblique to our course. They leapt out of the water like dolphins, crashing back in a welter of spray. Their course seemed steady, and they stayed in sight for half an hour or so. The whalers had been telling me that there were lots of whales. Now I began to believe them - at least as far as minke whales are concerned, and come to that humpback and sperm whales too, for I have seen them as well.

By the time we went down to supper (a large part of which was whale) we had recorded over eight hundred sightings. The groups of whales did not seem to be following any particular migration pattern that day, and not moving in the same direction as the fleet, and it was to my frank amazement that instead of waiting for a few days in this extremely rich hunting ground, that night all ships got orders to cruise west again.

"We'll leave all those fellows for the future," said the captain, with a smile.

The following day, even though the hunting was not as good as the day before, our ship got ten whales by early afternoon. Catcher number five got its last whale of the day, and was chasing a herd of twenty close to the pack ice when the fleet manager called off the hunt. The weather was fine, there were whales all around, but nobody cursed.

Perhaps one reason for the lack of ill temper over something like that, is that the Japanese Antarctic whalers do not get a bonus for each whale taken. This is very different from the old Norwegian or British systems, where every man on the catcher got so much extra money for each whale his gunner secured. Gunner Seko finished the season with a score of 932 minke whales, and the gunner next in line to him had 825, but Gunner Seko got no more pay for this, and neither did he expect it. The four ships worked as a team, and although there was inevitable rivalry, there was no jealousy. One especially good result of this was that gunners took time and care to select shots.

Many of the whales I saw shot were dead in an instant, with the 75 mm harpoon punching through the animal's great heart. Gunner Seko was especially good at this. However, in comparison to land mammals, a whale has less percentage of body cavity against bulk, and is therefore harder to strike in a vital organ. It is different, I noted again, from hunting seals, where the animal is almost always hit in the head by a bullet from the Inuit hunter's rifle. Despite this, I did not see prolonged agony. When a whale was hit and not killed, it would be brought to the bow. There a second shot might be used, especially if there was any danger of harpoon tearing out. Once at the bow, these whalers used a method I had not seen used before. They lanced the whale with two electrodes, the aim being to bracket the heart. Once in place, at a sign from the gunner, a shock of a hundred volts at five amperes would pulse through the whale, bringing death quickly.

Once the whale was killed, it was brought alongside and secured by a thickly padded, heavy chain. The harpoon was removed, and the hunt continued.

Unlike other whale hunts I have seen, they did not use the explosive harpoon head. For one thing, the grenade destroys too much meat. A second reason is that although they are using a 75 mm harpoon, not the huge 90 mm iron formerly most commonly used in whaling, the harpoon often goes straight through the minke whale, which is, of course, a relatively small animal. If there was a live grenade on the harpoon, it would explode either in water, or if the whale rolled, it might explode above the surface and scatter shrapnel.

I mention these things because whaling is, after all a hunt. But I, despite the undeniable thrill of the chase, like any thinking man abhor the sight and idea of killing and hate to see any creature in agony. Of all whaling, this was the quickest and most humane. It was over in minutes. If there was a safe way to do it quicker, it would be used.

From my own personal observations of the deaths of some three hundred and fifty whales, those not killed with one shot seemed to be in a kind of pre-death shock or torpor. Those that were not were very quickly hit again. Once the electricity pulsed through them it was a very short while before the gape dropped open and the nostril relaxed in death.

But please, before levelling accusing fingers at whalers for barbarity, I wonder how many have seen the terror of a western slaughterhouse? I have, several times, and that lingers with me as a far worse nightmare.

The days aboard the catchers were full and exciting. I was collecting material mainly for a novel, and kept two diaries or logs - one a big thick thing of detailed notes, thoughts and ideas, and another one I kept always in my pocket. Perhaps, to give some idea of part of the feeling of the time, I'll quote directly from my field notes.

Feb. 16, 1980.
10:30 a.m. - Saw a couple of humpback whales in the ice. Big, slow-moving backs and tall, easily seen blows. Gunner Seko says the ship has spotted ten humpbacks so far today.
We've got minke whales alongside, as we were hunting early as usual, and there are two minke whales in sight right now. Flat calm. Thin altocumulus and high cirrostratus.
10:40 a.m. - We've got another whale, in scattered pack ice. This ice extends out some sixty miles from the shore. The last kill took two shots and the electric lance, but still the whale was dead in a few minutes.
1:30 a.m. - Five or six sperm whales seen. We get one of two minke whales. Calm. Today there have been sightings from all catchers of 'Ama-san' which is the whalers' nickname for the humpback.
We're losing a lot of whales as they escape into the pack. Got a report of the sighting of a bottlenose whale of some kind. Saw some dead squid floating on the surface, and several seals - crabeaters, I think.
Radio officer Mr. Abe (who makes the best coffee in Antarctica) told me a story about three Taiyo catchers getting trapped in the ice. The crews were saved because one of them was a Hokkaido man, used to sea ice. He led them all out, making them carry long poles.
6 p.m. - Gunner Seko comes for supper. Has half a glass of whisky and hot water, begins to eat, and they spot whales. He goes up on deck. It's cold and snowing and we're in scattered pack ice. Gets a whale.
7 p.m. - He gets another whale, a really long shot to starboard, a shot I would have judged impossible. The harpoon took such a long time to reach the whale, and ship and whale were both moving fast.
A hit! Fifty, sixty meters? More, I think. The whale reared backwards, right out of the water, hit through the heart.
Gunner Seko comes down and finishes his whisky and his supper, cheerful as ever.
Our ship took seven whales today, and the fleet total was twenty three.
As I finish my own supper, the ship veers to avoid a humpback.
We had a hard time getting whales today, hard to get and hard to see because of the pack ice. However, we had four times as many sightings as we took whales. It's cold outside. Hot sake tastes particularly good. I go up on deck, very late. The decks are white with snow, the mast half covered with it, like a tree with moss.

At that time we were close to the Riiser Larsen Peninsula, with instructions to travel west, off Queen Maud Land. We had left the easy hunting grounds, open sea with scattered ice bergs, and we now hunted the edge of the pack into which the minke whales were always escaping.

I spent a week on the catcher that time, then went back to the big ship to write up notes. Always to has been hard to think about writing things down when there is so much to see and hear. After a little while, again I pleaded for a trip on a second catcher. This one was just as friendly, and its first officer had spent a lot of thought and energy trying to improve the electric lance. He had even made and tested a simplified lance head which really was more effective. He made it himself, on board ship. I came back off that trip with reinforced views of the effectiveness of the electro-shock killing.

The last day of hunting was March 1st. I was once again on 'Number 1 Kyomaru'. Each catcher was to take four whales to make the season's quota of 3,279. Gunner Seko shot the last whale of the year. We had been chasing a group of twenty, and he had been very careful, if not fussy about his selection. Snow petrels fluttered above us and visibility was unlimited.

With the last whale shot and secured and duly reported to the fleet manager, I could see tension and strain lift off the faces of the men on the catcher. The bosun climbed slowly down from the mast, heavily laden with Nikon binoculars. The quartermaster cleaned and oiled the gun, then happily covered it with tightly lashed canvas. The number two quartermaster took inventory and got all smokeless powder, caps and brass shells from the magazine, ready to be transferred to the mother-ship. All catchers would travel home unarmed.

At 11:30 a.m. that day we went alongside. I was lifted back onto the big ship, and the catcher's crew hustled to take on water and oil, to put off harpoons and explosives. The officers of the catcher came up to the fleet commander's control room for a small drink - a ritual - a talk, and sailing instructions.

As for me, I leaned over and waved to friends on the catcher, which looked so small below us. All around at least a hundred minke whales were in sight, and as I looked, a large herd of them swam right across our bows, barely four hundreds yards away.

"See," said an old sailor, "we left lots of them, didn't we. You tell them, because I can't speak English, but we left lots of them."

As soon as the catcher was waved off, we began our slow, stormy, forty day return journey to Japan. That night came the last of a hunting season pleasure - the late night supper of whale meat, broiled on an iron plate.

Now came time for talk and reflection. In the day was the constant pounding of hammers as the men knocked off rust and prepared the ship for its annual painting. It was a truly long journey home, but for me at least, well spent. The pressures of the season were off and I was able to spend time talking with the men, many of whom had spent decades in the Antarctic, or on whaling ventures all over the globe. I gathered books of whalers' yarns, songs and hopes, and precious memories of huddling in a cabin while a storm raged, or of languid evenings sitting on grass mats out on the decks, watching movies, looking at stars, and then there were the first exciting sights of Bali and the Celebes, of pods of sperm whales there, and of thousands of dolphins...

We returned safely though, in time to catch the blossoming of the cherry trees. With the first draft of my novel finished the night before, I stood on deck from dawn to watch our docking in Tokyo.

Over fifty thousand kilometres had we travelled. We had brought back enough edible products to give every person in Japan a meal of whale. As I stood on deck, together with those rugged, sun and wind tanned men of the Japanese Antarctic fleet, listening to the final speeches, I felt proud to have known them.

But permit me, just once more, to jump in time. June. Coming back on that Tokyo train, feeling depressed. I was tempted that night to turn round and catch the 8:40 p.m. night train back to Taiji, where at least there would be the sounds and smells of the sea...but...

I got out of the station - and there were actually swallows with nestlings there I noted - and walked along the narrow street, crowded on either side with small restaurants, shops and bars. I was hungry, and I stopped in front of one and looked at the display, which looked cheap and tasty. I went in.

It was a typical eating and drinking place, seating eight or so people at the counter, with a long glass case in which was displayed a nice array of sea foods and fresh vegetables, attractively arrayed as only the Japanese know how to. I took my pick, ordered sake, and sat thinking. After a little while a Japanese man in his fifties or sixties, wearing a beret, came in and squeezed in beside me.

"Anything delicious tonight," he asked the man behind the counter.

"Ah yes," came the reply, "I have something good, fresh in today." He lifted out a platter of rich, marbled meat. I had not spotted it myself as it had been obscured by a clump of green parsley, but I knew at a glance what it was - it was best quality whale meat, a cut from close the tail.

"That's good," said the customer.
"Oh, so you eat whale meat?" I could not but help speaking to my neighbor. He turned and looked at me as if I was stupid.

"Of course, it's delicious." He held out his sake cup while the owner's wife poured for him. Then, a touch grumpily, "Don't you eat whale? It's much better than your beef." I grinned and raised my own sake cup to him, but said nothing.

However, that depression was gone. I forgot the statements of the 'old Japan hand' who pontificated from a multi-storeyed building, while eating western food. So he says the Japanese never eat whale?

I tried to remember a quote, by Plato.
"In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is to speak?"

I had sailed with the whalers. I found them to be honest men. They do not have reason to believe that they are killing off the last of the whales. They hunt for food to feed their countrymen, not for export, nor to feed animals. They are not cruel or arrogant men. The data that comes back from the Antarctic is good, and true.

I have been, and asked, and heard and seen. What more can I do but try to tell just that?

C.W. Nicol
Tokyo. June 1980.

_