Remember when I told you to be prepared for whaling scaremongering this week, well here you go:

Scientists are warning that a new form of unregulated whaling has emerged along the coastlines of Japan and South Korea, where the commercial sale of whales killed as fisheries “bycatch” is threatening coastal stocks of minke whales and other protected species.

Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, says DNA analysis of whale-meat products sold in Japanese markets suggests that the number of whales actually killed through this “bycatch whaling” may be equal to that killed through Japan’s scientific whaling program – about 150 annually from each source.

Baker, a cetacean expert, and Vimoksalehi Lukoscheck of the University of California-Irvine presented their findings at the recent scientific meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Portugal. Their study found that nearly 46 percent of the minke whale products they examined in Japanese markets originated from a coastal population, which has distinct genetic characteristics, and is protected by international agreements. It will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Animal Conservation.

Their conclusion: As many as 150 whales came from the coastal population through commercial bycatch whaling, and another 150 were taken from an open ocean population through Japan’s scientific whaling. In some past years, Japan only reported about 19 minke whales killed through bycatch, though that number has increased recently as new regulations governing commercial bycatch have been adopted, Baker said.

Japan is now seeking IWC agreement to initiate a small coastal whaling program, a proposal which Baker says should be scrutinized carefully because of the uncertainty of the actual catch and the need to determine appropriate population counts to sustain the distinct stocks.

Whales are occasionally killed in entanglements with fishing nets and the deaths of large whales are reported by most member nations of the IWC. Japan and South Korea are the only countries that allow the commercial sale of products killed as “incidental bycatch.” The sheer number of whales represented by whale-meat products on the market suggests that both countries have an inordinate amount of bycatch, Baker said.  [Red Orbit]

Korea has been criticized in the past for illegal whaling and actually launched a crackdown last year against illegal whaling in its whaling capitol of Ulsan.  I like whales as much as the next person, but whale protesters have very little creditability with me, especially after read ingthings like this and the fact that the top whale environmentalist Paul Watson and his group Sea Shepherd has been caught continuously lying and preaches that mankind is a virus that needs to be wiped out.