Japan's red list of marine creatures by Fiseries Agency is too terrible!!

18 October 2017
JAPANESE

Japan's red list of marine creatures by Fiseries Agency is too terrible!!

The transelated general remarks of "Verification Report of Japan's Marine Red List" in the following file.

The calculation results of the other seven species are summarized in the following file.

  On March 21, Japanese Fisheries Agency and Ministry of the Environment jointly announced "Red list of marine creature".
  The two government offices allocated targets species according to their "territories".
  Fisheries Agency undertook 94 species of major fishery subjects and whales (except the managed species by international organizations including the IWC). There is "No" endangered species. Only one DD (one of flatfish).   On the other hand, Ministry of the Environment undertook the other marine animals, and 56 species are described as endangered species.
  It is very different from IUCN's evaluation. And it is also very different from The Mammal Society of Japan's evaluation.
  It is contradictory that migrate birds have been evaluated by Ministry of the Environment but large whales and migrate fish are not evaluated.
  Surprisingly, Fisheries Agency states that no major threats are found to almost whale species evaluated. They can see nothing about the influence of climate change, pollution of plastics and chemical, over-fishing, increase of collision with ships, sonar and so on.
  The following are key points of the other problem.

- Initially DD NT and "Unranked" categories of Japan's red list, including the Ministry of the Environment, are not in compliance with IUCN.

Difference of categories between IUCN's red list and Japan's red list

Difference of categories between IUCN's red list and Japan's red list,#2

- Using Japan original "Quasi-Criterion E", all whale species were described as "Unranked", unlike IUCN's. This "Quasi-Criterion E" makes it possible to down-list in two stages using the same data as criterion A.

Difference of criterions between IUCN's red list and Japan's red list

If applying Quasi-criterion E at the other species

If applying Quasi-criterion E at the other species,#2

The worst of all is finless porpoise (IUCN rank is VU) which is the species many person concerned wildlife in Japan. Finless porpoise is evaluated to threatened categories by prefectures RDB, but they may be excluded from the list according to the list of Fisheries Agency together with several fish species.

Difference in judgment between JFA's Marine Red List and prefectures RDB

Evaluation of narrow-ridged finless porpoise in prefectures RDB

About Baird's beaked whale, there is no mention of new species which paper was published in 2016, and it was suggested before that.

The next table is Evaluation target cetacean species of new red list by Fisheries Agency, the previous list by Fisheries Agency, by the Mammal Society of Japan, by IUCN (2016/2017) and mine.

The following is the calculation result of rough-toothed dolphin with IUCN's tool. New capturing quota for Taiji hunting of this species has been accepted by Fisheries Agency this year.

Reference:
- Evidence Indicates Presence of Undescribed Beaked Whale Species in North Pacific