Whale Watching Business Rising in Japan
Japan recently approved commercial whale hunting, ending a ban that lasted more than 30 years. But even when the ban was in place, whales generated big business in Japan because of the popularity of whale watching.
The number of whale watchers around Japan more than doubled between 1998 and 2015, official information shows. Data for more recent years is not yet available. One company in Okinawa had 18,000 watchers between January and March of this year.
One of the most popular places for whale watching is Rausu, a fishing village on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
In Rausu, 33,451 people took part in boat tours last year for whale and bird watching. That is 2,000 more than in 2017 and more than 9,000 higher than in 2016. The visitors are good for the local economy.
Ikuyo Wakabayashi is head of tourism in the Rausu area. She told Reuters news agency the number of visitors keeps growing each year. “Of the tourist boat business, 65 percent is whale watching.”
“You don’t just see one type of whale here, you see lots of them,” said Wakabayashi, who is a big fan of whales herself. She says whale watching is what led her to move to Rausu from her native city of Osaka.
Wakabayashi said she fell in love with the area after three trips to Rausu to see orcas. “I thought this was an incredible place,” she said. “Winters are tough, but it’s so beautiful.”
Rausu is 160 kilometers north of the port city of Kushiro. That is where the first ships left from earlier this month to restart whale hunting. On the first day of the hunt, two minke whales were killed.
One whale-watching boat operator in Rausu, Masato Hasegawa, said his tours also search for minke whales. But the former fisherman said hunters do not go after some other kinds of whales his visitors recently saw, such as sperm whales and orcas.
Hasegawa said one of the best places in the area to see whales is protected from hunting. “They won’t come into this area – it’s a national park – or there’d be big trouble,” he said.
But Hasegawa said if hunters take a lot of minke whales in the nearby Sea of Okhotsk, it would reduce sightings and hurt the business. Whale watching has become popular in other areas of Japan as well, including parts of the southern Okinawa islands.
Commercial whaling is a very small industry in Japan. It employs a few hundred people. Government data shows that whale makes up just 0.1 percent of meat eaten in the country.
Some experts say Japan’s move might help some whales because it means that Japan will stop hunting whales in the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and other sensitive areas.
Japan’s Fisheries Agency has set a limit of 227 whale kills for this year. In the past, Japan caught as many as 1,200 whales a year in the name of scientific research.
日本赏鲸游备受欢迎
日本最近批准了商业捕鲸活动，此举结束了一项长达30多年的禁令。但是即使在禁令生效期间鲸鱼也在日本催生了一门大生意，因为赏鲸大受欢迎。
官方数据显示，1998年到2015年期间，日本各地的赏鲸人数翻了一倍多。最近几年的数据尚未公布。今年1至3月期间，冲绳一家公司接待了1.8万名赏鲸人。
最受欢迎的赏鲸地点是日本北部北海道岛上的渔村罗臼。
去年罗臼有33451人乘坐游船观赏鲸鱼和鸟类。这比2017年增加了2千多人，比2016年增加了9千多人。这些游客对当地经济有利。
若林郁代是罗臼地区旅游业负责人。她对路透社表示，观赏的人数还在不断增加。她说：“再乘船旅游的生意中，赏鲸占65%。”
若林郁代自己很喜欢赏鲸。她说：“在这里你不止能看到一种鲸鱼，能看到很多种鲸鱼。”她称赏鲸让她从家乡大阪搬到了罗臼。
若林郁代表示，她在三次前往罗臼观赏逆戟鲸后爱上了这里。她说：“我认为这里很棒。冬天很冷，但这并不影响这种美景。”
罗臼位于港口城市钏路市以北160公里。这是本月初重启捕鲸的首批船只出发的地方。在捕鲸首日，有两只小须鲸被捕杀。
罗臼一位赏鲸船的驾驶员驰川正户表示，他的观鲸游也在寻找小须鲸。但是这位前渔民表示，捕猎人员不会捕杀游客们最近看到的其它种类的鲸鱼，例如抹香鲸和逆戟鲸。
驰川正户表示，该地区最好的观鲸地点不会有捕鲸活动。他说：“他们不会来这片水域，这里是国家公园，来这会有大麻烦。”
但是驰川正户表示，如果捕鲸人在附近的鄂霍次克海捕获大量的小须鲸，就会减少目击到鲸鱼的机会，并伤害到这门生意。观鲸在日本其它地区也很受欢迎，其中包括冲绳岛南部的部分地区。
商业捕鲸在日本是一个非常小的行业。该行业雇佣了数百人。政府数据显示，鲸鱼只占到该国食用肉类的0.1%。
一些专家表示，日本此举对一些鲸鱼有利，因为这意味着日本将会停止在南大洋、大西洋以及其它敏感地区捕鲸。
日本渔业局今年设定了227头鲸鱼的捕杀限制。过去，日本每年以科研名义捕杀的鲸鱼多达1200头。
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