C.D. Grabiel/EIA

Kyokuyo.

Japan's fourth largest fisheries company, Kyokuyo, has pledged to stop its sale of whale meat in Japan.

Following a campaign calling on True World Foods, a company distributing Kyokuyo sushi in the United States, to persuade Kyokuyo to stop selling whale products, Kyokuyo stated it has ceased production of whale products and is in the process of selling off its remaining stockpile. 

This is a major victory for whale-lovers around the world. Our activists' emails to True World Foods and Kyokuyo helped turn the tide. Kyokuyo is thought to have sold at least 10 million cans of whale meat each year in Japan, plus frozen whale products. Without companies like Kyokuyo, Japan's whaling industry will fall flat.

This news comes as nations convene on whaling in Alaska at the International Whaling Commission meeting, where Japan is pushing a plan to kill even more whales. Plans to expand Japan's whale hunt were drawn up at the time Kyokuyo, Nippon Suisan and Maruha were joint owners of Japan's whaling fleet. 

The HSUS and Humane Society International are now calling on these leading fisheries companies to promote the conservation of whales by urging the Government of Japan to withdraw imminent plans for the killing of 50 humpback and 50 fin whales in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary.

Second Japanese Company to End Whaling Involvement

Maruha, Japan's largest seafood company and one of the former owners of Japan's whaling fleet also confirmed this week it is ending its production and sale of whale products throughout Japan following an Environmental Investigation Agency campaign in 2006.

Kyokuyo, Nippon Suisan and Maruha were Japan's leading commercial whaling companies during the height of commercial whaling, estimated to have killed nearly half a million whales in the Antarctic and North Pacific between 1929 and 1986 and a further 35,000 whales after the 1986 ban on commercial whaling.

They continued their involvement in whaling until March 2006, when an international campaign directed at Nippon Suisan spurred all three companies to divest their shares in the whaling fleet. Nippon Suisan stated then it would also stop the sale of whale meat.

"The fact that Japan's leading fisheries companies have completely distanced themselves from Japan's 'scientific' whaling demonstrates clearly that there is no future in commercial whaling," said Patricia Forkan, president, HSI. "The current market for whale meat in Japan is an artificial one, supported by government subsidies and distribution of cut-price whale meat to public institutions such as schools and hospitals."