The other day I was talking to my dear friend and Guru, Sidney Holt, about this world economical crisis and if it would have any impact on the whaling scene as we know it. It is almost certain that good faith, politics, conservation policies, and lobbying alone will not turn the tide; the economical aspect of it all will be the decisive feature. As of now we cannot really forecast what will happen, but wondering about it, the fuel prices will fell dramatically, the Japanese whaling industry and hardware is getting old and they been having repeated misfortunes lately. The Oriental Bluebird, the refueling vessel that would go down to the Antarctic lost its registration and Panamá flag and is now registered in Japan requiring more staff and funds etc.
What would be the decisions of the Japanese to the future, go forward and build the new factory ship, which will drown us on a few more years of negotiations and political battles on the stalemate state that the IWC is at the moment… we don’t know.
What do the Japanese really want of this entire circus, do we even know? It is obvious that most of the reasons they present are total bogus … so what now?
But the question I’m maybe more interested in finding out is what will the Obama Administration do? Will they uphold all the negotiations done by Hogarth? Will they change all of it upside down? It will be interesting to see!