Approval of Whaling and Whaling-related Beliefs: Public Opinion in Whaling and Nonwhaling Countries

We examined a widely held argument that the disagreement over resumption of commercial whaling between whaling countries (approve) and nonwhaling countries (disapprove) is due to dissimilar views of whales and whaling (i.e., whether whales are consumptive resources). By analyzing public survey data about whaling in whaling countries (Japan, Norway) and in nonwhaling countries (Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, United States), we found that the public's approval of whaling was positively correlated with approval of the consumption of whale meat; however, it was not correlated with knowledge about populations of whales, in either the whaling nor nonwhaling countries. We also found that the public in the nonwhaling countries disapproved of whaling and strongly disapproved of the consumption of whale meat, whereas the public in the whaling countries approved of whaling and slightly disapproved of the consumption of whale meat. Our findings confirm the so-called "cultural gulf" between whaling and nonwhaling countries.