Plants and Animals

Its good news that numbers of the endangered gouldian finch appear to be increasing in northern Australia.

Colleen O’Malley, from the Threatened Species Network, told ABC Online that:

“We’re talking birds in the vicinity of 200 to 400 in a flock, which is a really exciting thing that sort of harks back to the days when there were flocks of thousands of birds.”

And ABC Online were following up on a media release from WWF. WWF runs the threatened species network with public money.

Interestingly the WWF media release doesn’t come with a link to a full report or a chart showing bird numbers, but rather with a link to page where we are told WWF wants your help to find Gouldian finches in the wild and have produced the Gouldian Finch Sightings Kit. The kit does include some information on the ecology of the species in northern Australia.

Most Australians love whales and abhor the idea of killing these magnificient creatures. In contrast there is a long tradition of killing and eating whales in Japan.

I am an Australian and I am interested in understanding the history and culture of whaling in Japan. I like challenging my beliefs and preconceptions and learning why and how different cultures harvest wildlife.

This is part 2 of ‘The Whale: A Fish in Japanese Eyes’ a series of readings from Whales and the Japanese by Masayki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki:

“Some 4000 to 5500 years ago, in the earliest days of the Jomon Period, our ancestors were eating whale meat, as re-vealed by archaeological finds from around San Nai Maruyama, in Aomori Prefecture.

Large deposits of whale and dolphin bone have been discovered at these sites. In those days, there was no whaling as we know it today, rather the people made use of small whales that beached themselves, or drifted already dead to shore. Those whales were called yori kujira, or visiting whale, and were thought of as gifts from heaven.

There is considerable debate, depending on which period of our history we analyze, as to whether or not ancient Japanese people simply passively awaited yori kujira or went to sea to actively hunt whales. However, one thing is certain: Japanese have utilized whales and small cetaceans for food throughout our history, just as we have utilized all the sea’s resources such as seaweed, fish and shell-fish. However, even in the Jomon Period, there is evidence of some active whaling.

The remains of a Jomon Period village (from 4000 BC to 300 BC) unearthed in Noto Peninsula, in Ishikawa Prefecture, revealed a considerable deposit of whale and dolphin bone. It was found in such quantities as to indicate a high probability that the people of that region actively hunted whales and dolphins.”

To read Part 1, and the comments that followed, click here.

Glen Inwood recently sent me some books about whaling from a Japanese perspective. They are so interesting with a lot of history. Given many readers of this blog have a particular interest in whaling, I plan to post some extracts from these books over the next few months. Here’s the first installment:

“Since time immemorial, the Japanese people have been religiously taught to avoid eating four-legged animals – a teaching that has its genesis in the influence of the Buddhist faith. When Buddhism was introduced from the Asian continent well over a thousand years ago, the Prince Regent Shotoku, who ruled the nation at the time, quickly became a devoted follower of the new faith. He promoted a marriage of Bhuddism with the indigenous Japanese religion, Shinto.

After Prince Shotoku, there was a successful coup bringing Emperor Tenchi to power, and he wasted no time in declaring Buddhism the national religion. In the seventh century, Emperor Tenmu prohibited the eating of land animals entirely. The whale, however, lived in the ocean and was regarded as a fish, and therefore notably not included in the prohibition.

Centuries after this decree, in 1687, the Shogun Tsunayoshi introduced a special mercy law protecting animals. He loved dogs to the point of madness, and all animals were further protected by this law. However, even under this Shogun, whales were not protected.

Moreover, because this law made it harder to procure animal meat, the whale found itself even more sought after as a crucial source of protein in the Japanese diet. It was during this era that net whaling developed, and whale meat consequently became a more regular feature of the Japanese diet.”

(From Whales and the Japanese by Masayki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki, pg. 54)

And here’s a link to a recent news story with Japanese surfers complaining not enough was done to save stranded melon-head whales.

It will be Easter soon and if you live in Australia you can buy a chocolate bilbie instead of a chocolate rabbit to celebrate the occasion.

I understand that rabbits are traditionally associated with Easter because they represent fertility. Bilbies are not particularly fertile, in fact they are listed as endangered, but hey, it is all about helping an Australian native marsupial that’s doing it tough.

There were once two species of bilbie, but one is recorded as extinct since 1931 (Macrotis leucura). Bilbies have soft silky fur, long noses, long ears and they do not need to drink water.

I was sent a link to a story on ABC Television in Western Australia last week about a women struggling to save horses on a property purchased by government with the intention of putting it back how it was before European settlement. This involves removing artificial sources of water including dams.

Draining the dams has had the effect of starving and dehydrating many feral animals, including wild horses while presumably favoring native animals like bilbies that don’t need a drink.

The transcript is worth reading, it raises issues of animal cruelty, but also how one state government agency is trying to achieve some of its longer term objectives for wildlife management in Australia’s rangelands, click here.