Major whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Co. said Monday it plans to replace the world's only whaling mother ship, the Nisshin Maru, with a new whaling mother ship capable of sailing to the Antarctic Ocean.
The move paves the way for the resumption of whaling in distant seas, but as there are no prospects aimed at resuming such activities and that construction costs have yet to be secured, the project is facing considerable challenges.
A whaling mother ship has the ability to dissect whales caught by other ships within its fleet and then freeze and preserve the whale meat while still on high seas.
The new ship is slated to be about the same size as the Nisshin Maru, an 8,145-ton vessel that is about 130 meters long and about 20 meters wide, according to the Tokyo-based company. It will be capable of being at sea for about two months.
If built, the bottom of the ship will be made of double steel plates to withstand the Antarctic Ocean's ice and it will have the capacity of lifting a large fin whale weighing as much as 70 tons.
However, opportunities for such mother ships have been on the decline.
Built in 1987, the Nisshin Maru played a key role in the research whaling program, in which whales in the Antarctic Ocean and other areas were caught starting from 1991 in order to determine their population. However, research whaling ended after Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission in 2019.
Currently, the Nisshin Maru is engaged in commercial whaling in waters around Japan, but it has been unable to fully utilize its capabilities as a mother ship and there are no prospects of resuming its prior operations in the Antarctic Ocean.
Furthermore, securing the construction cost, which is expected to be about 6 billion yen, has its own range of issues.
From FY 2018 to FY 2020, projects that researched the size and performance qualities for the new ship received about 500 million yen in subsidies from the Fisheries Agency
However, after whaling shifted toward commercial purposes, an official of the agency said: "What to do with a new vessel is up to the companies. We're not thinking of investing any [more] government funds."
Kyodo Senpaku is slated to cover the ship building cost with its own funds, but its business has been facing difficulties. To cover the ship's construction cost, the company is planning to launch crowdfunding campaigns to collect donations by promoting the importance of whaling in preparation for future food crises, in addition to borrowing from financial institutions.
The company plans to obtain approval at the general meeting of shareholders in June and complete the new ship at the end of fiscal 2023.
"If the whaling mother ship disappears, the whaling techniques we have cultivated will be lost," said Hideki Tokoro, 66, president of the company.
" In order to protect the nation's traditional culinary culture, we cannot afford to lose the option of operating in distant seas."
Japan resumed commercial whaling in July 2019 for the first time in 31 years due to the end of research whaling. Whaling companies, including Kyodo Senpaku, catch three kinds of whales -- minke, Bryde's and sei whales -- in Japanese territorial waters and its exclusive economic zones. Each whale weighs five to 30 tons. Japan caught a total of 307 whales in 2020.
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