Environmental security

2 Surprising Reasons Why Japan Won't Stop Hunting Whales

Hirata attributes Japan's pro-whaling anomaly to two factors. The first is cultural. Unlike Americans, Japanese people don't tend to see whales as charismatic mammals that should be protected from human consumption by a universal taboo. Hirata points out that in Japanese, "the symbol for whale (pronounced kujira) includes within it a component that means fish." Since whales are considered just a really big fish, she writes, "most Japanese lack any special love of whales and disagree with Western animal rights activists who insists on whales' rights." Sanctimony about whales translates as cultural prejudice...