Japanese attitudes to whaling
I noticed via Japan Probe, via Scoop NZ, that there was a press release issued by the Institute Of Cetacean Research, which, if Wikipedia’s article is to be trusted, is basically not much more than a front for the Japanese government for justifying whaling. In the press release there is much statistical jiggery-pokery that I shall try to get to the bottom of.
In November 2006, Internet giant Yahoo Japan held an online poll that showed 90 percent public support for a return to commercial whaling. In the recent poll, 21,221 people cast a vote, with 19,001 agreeing with sustainable commercial whaling and 2220 opposed. In Japanese only: http://polls.dailynews.yahoo.co.jp
Basic fact checking: the poll was conducted from the 18th to 24th of October, not November as stated in the article. Obvious errors like that, whilst not affecting the validity of any of the points in the article, indicates sloppiness to me, and heightens my critical evaluation of the rest of the text. Basic fact checking 2: the poll was on whether people supported Iceland’s unilateral resumption of commercial whaling, a small yet significant difference.
This result also highlights the danger in accepting at face value the results of online polls, in particular public polls. First, there is no protection against multiple votes; in fact, just deleting or refusing the cookie that gets pushed after voting allows one to vote again. Second, publishing a link to an online poll from a pro-issue (or anti-issue for that matter) blog can easily bias the voting population. Looking at other polls conducted around the same time, however, I cannot see anything that obviously indicates excessive ballot stuffing, although two other science-related polls were conducted at the same time, with one on how much to pay for a cloak of invisibility gathering a similar 21,142 votes, but one on eating cloned beef gained just 8,048 votes. My gut feeling is that cloned beef would be more of an issue than Icelandic commercial whaling, however, so I cannot say that there wasn’t fraudulent voting.
Yahoo’s poll mirrors a similar poll by Japan’s Cabinet Office in 2001 that found 75.4 percent of respondents agreed with sustainable whaling based on scientific evidence, with 14.6 percent having no opinion and only 9.9 percent of respondents disagreeing.
I looked at that poll before, and I thought it was quite a fairly conducted poll. However, I can’t find it again! If anyone has a link, please let me know.
Dr Hatanaka said Greenpeace Japan’s poll released on 15 June 2006, which is constantly referred to by Greenpeace spokespeople and various media, showed that only 26.4 percent of respondents disagreed with whaling, while 34.5 percent of the public wanted commercial whaling. A staggering 39.2 percent had absolutely no view. (View Greenpeace Japan’s poll results here, Page 8 has the executive summary)
That’s worth a read, as even if there were bias in the questioning that one might expect from a poll sponsored by Greenpeace (not that I saw any in the English version), they didn’t get the result they may have wanted.
I did see an interesting argument postulated (and that Cabinet Office poll used it in one question) that when Westerners get all dewy-eyed about saving the whales (let alone Sea Shepherd’s pirate skipper suggesting he may very well carry out a kamikaze mission against Japanese whaling ships) Japanese tend to have a knee-jerk reaction against this perceived foreign interference in their culture.
For the record, as a vegetarian I have zero interest in eating whale, but I have concerns about the high levels of mercury and other heavy metals that may or may not be present in whale meat, so I couldn’t recommend eating it to anyone without further investagation into this issue. From the whaling point of view, if there really is a market (and that seems to be a very big if) and if the whales are harvested in a sustainable (both ecologically and financially) manner, then I see it as no worse than other fishing or land mammal hunting. Indeed, the quality of life of a whale before ending up as steak seems better than that of a farmed cow before becoming a Big Mac. I support the rights of aboriginal and other peoples to conduct small-scale traditional costal hunting, of course, coming as I do from a small community where annual gannet strangling trips is one of our traditional barbaric pastimes.
Oh, and although this refers to another aquatic mammal beloved by the Japanese, I thought this subtle Simpsons dig was worth linking to.
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Japan News for January 12, 2007 | Japan Probe said,
January 12, 2007 @ 11:39
[…] Ken Y-N points out why the article that claimed 90% of Japanese people support a return to commercial whaling may be flawed. […]
david@tokyo said,
January 12, 2007 @ 12:59
Hi,
I always have respect for vegetarians who point out the hypocrisy of all the meat eaters in the world who criticise the animal protein sources of others.
Here is the original poll from 2002:
http://www.jfa.maff.go.jp/whale/document/20020315publicpollsimple.pdf
I don’t know why the ICR PR decided to report the Yahoo! poll, and regardless of how they reported it, the Yahoo! poll was not scientific in the first place - most Japanese people don’t care about the issue enough to bother to vote in the first place, something that a simple “yes / no” question like “do you agree with or oppose commercial whaling?” will never show you.
Several polls taken at websites like the BBC and CNN have also produced results indicating support for commercial whaling in the past as well.
As for Greenpeace’s own poll, as well as totally misrepresenting the results of the work that they comissioned, the poll report itself indicates that the the results were not necessarily representative of the population of Japan as a whole, due to the sampling methodology used.
On the question of pollutants in whale meat, it depends on the species, and where it was harvested. Antarctic whales are believed to basically be “clean”, while northern hemisphere species have more detectable levels, although baleen whales exhibit less problems than toothed whales. In short, one can’t make blanket statements about whether it’s safe and healthy to eat or not - it depends what species you eat, what part of it you eat, where it came from, and how often you eat it. People consuming dolphin meat every day would probably have issues, but people eating Antarctic minke every day would be fine (based on a report I have seen from the Japanese Ministry of Health).
Finally, there is certainly a market for whale meat. Consumption has increased significantly over the past couple of years, as more product has been coming available to the market than was available during the 1990’s. I have analysed official stockpile figures from various angles. Some people have queried whether the extra consumption is through public activity (alleged “forcing” school children to eat whale meat), but figures show that the amount of whale meat allocated to public activity remains around 900 to 1,000 tonnes a year, as compared with total consumption which was around 5,000 tonnes in 2004, but up to around 8,000 in 2006 (I just added figures for up to November 2006 on my blog yesterday, see my URL).
I strongly agree with you regarding the lives that whales live. People in the west tend to think they have a rough deal, but that’s because they focus on the killing method (like I would appreciate that!). As a meat eater, I have a kind of aesthetic preference towards eating whale meat myself, although availability of whale is obviously still very limited compared with other substitutes.
Ken Y-N said,
January 14, 2007 @ 23:36
Hi david,
Thanks for the detailed reply - I saw your postings on other blogs on the same topic, so I guessed you couldn’t resist posting here too! Interesting about the toxin levels - I guess the J whaling industy would claim that’s part of their research that you can’t really do with a live animal.
I’d disagree, however, about you calling the Greenpeace poll flawed due to the sampling method. Whilst they did do an internet-based poll, it was through a reputable polling company that tries to ensure a balanced profile (although, of course, everyone is an internet user) and safe against the problem of multiple votes, and reasonably safe against self-selection, although members of the monitor group may tend to choose to answer surveys on topics that they have an interest in.
However, I will agree that Greenpeace to seem to have misrepresented the results, although since they sponsored the survey they had to try to find whatever scrap of positive spin. They do, however, present the full results, which does show honesty.
BTW, I’ve got a related and interesting (perhaps) poll on tuna fishing coming up soon…
david@tokyo said,
January 15, 2007 @ 18:22
Hi Ken,
Glad we can agree with regards to Greenpeace’s misrepresentation.
My criticism was mainly on that count - regarding the sampling method, if you check either the original Japanese or the english translation of their poll results, it says: (their english translation) “The samples were withdrawn from the internet panels therefore their opinions may not be representatives of the nationwide population”.
Personally I don’t think those results are so far from the reality anyway, but Greenpeace is hardly in a position to be criticising the ICR.
3KUN - IIIKUNIII said,
January 19, 2007 @ 01:45
Japan and Whaling: Japanese culture - Australia attempts to destroy Japanese culture
This foriegner, who clearly hates Japan and wants to destroy Japanese culture as part of some anti-Japan agenda, wrote:
The Japanese whaling fleet is determined to illegally slaughter more than 1,000 whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. Japan has …
More on support for the whaling industry at Japan Economy News & Blog said,
January 21, 2007 @ 21:02
[…] In a recent post, this blog discussed a Yahoo Japan poll concerning support for commercial whaling amongst the Japanese public. At his What Japan Thinks blog, Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson has done a tremendous job of deconstructing the poll results to see what’s going on behind them. His post is a must read if you’re at all interested in the topic. Related Posts:Does the Japanese public support Whaling?What scares Japanese firms about the economy in 2007?To rate hike or not to rate hike?Consumer spending in Japan: Next year’s economic bugbear? […]
What tuna quota cuts mean to the Japanese » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,
June 11, 2007 @ 23:03
[…] connected with this survey is my recent examination of a press release by the Institute Of Cetacean Research on whaling. It might be interesting to perform a survey see if people would switch from tuna to […]
Archangel said,
January 16, 2008 @ 13:12
I love this bit about butting into there Culture….Sounds like what Imperial Japan did over China…What the next step? Walk out of the relevant bodies like Japan did at the league of Nations? What it does prove is that Japan never changed…and are acting like a spoilt brat!
As for the spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean research, Glenn Inwood is a flunky(no doubt one with probably a big bank balance…)more interested in his bank balance than in doing the right thing. Culture, last time this was dragged out was when American Black Sailors were not allowed ashore in the 70’s. Your ships deserve sinking, your in Australian Waters doing illegal acts your nothing more than cheap dishonourable pirates, hiding under a tissue of misinformation and lies! To your own people and the world, like I said shades of WW2!
Criminals nothing more nothing less!
Michael said,
January 22, 2008 @ 11:08
I am an Australian with no intrest in destroying Japanese culture, they can do what they want within reason, but if Japanese culture claims that the traditional method of hunting whales is with a 3000 tonne diesel powered ship and explosive harpoons then I’m the fucking Pope!
The arguement that stopping Japan from whaling is an attack on its traditinal culture does not hold water, although Australia was founded as a penal colony, the majority of its early development was based solely on the whaling industry, in the early years of settlement the Australian economy was largely dependent on income from whaling to continue expansion.Whole communities were dependent on the income derived from the whaling trade. If any country could claim whaling as a fundamental part of its tradition, Australia could. Most countries in the western world have long traditions of whaling dating back thousands of years and yet the responsible ones have discontinued the practice, there are still notable exceptions in scandinavia where the populations should know better, however Japan’s claims of cultural dependence would be given more credence if the whaling fleets were out hunting whales in row boats with hand thrown harpoons.
That said, the best method to combat this type crime is still education, the funding that goes to protest boats and trying to stop individual whale kills, while entertaining, and I am sure personally gratifying for those involved, would be more effectivly spent on public awareness and education within Japan.
The history of whaling in Japan » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,
January 24, 2008 @ 22:19
[…] Just to tie this into surveys, here’s a story from this time last year on an opinion poll regarding Japanese attitudes to whaling. […]
Japan’s view of whaling » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,
February 8, 2008 @ 08:27
[…] the ongoing whaling by Japan being generally supported by the Japanese public, this perhaps sums up Japan’s official stance. It was Masayuki Komatsu of the Fisheries […]