Technical Reports of the Ins�tute of Cetacean Research (2020)

pp. 54–56

Technical Report-Note (not peer reviewed)

Japanʼs system for monitoring of whale products sold inits domes�c market through DNA registra�on
Mutsuo Goto* and Hiroyuki Oikawa
Institute of Cetacean Research, 4–5 Toyomi-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104–0055, Japan*Contact e-mail: goto@cetacean.jp
As in the case of Norway and Iceland, Japan has beenusing a DNA-based system for monitoring (tracking
origins of) large whale products sold in the retail market(Figure 1). Such a task is entrusted to the Ins�tute ofCetacean Research (ICR) by the Government of Japan(Fisheries Agency of Japan) as an outsourced program
every year.
The system is composed of two main components, i) a
DNA register including gene�c proﬁles of all large whales
legally taken (including bycatches) and imported intoJapan, and ii) systema�c surveys of large whale products
sold in the retail market. The objec�ve of this system is toprevent illegal take of large whales and illegal import oflarge whale products by comparing DNA proﬁles of large
whale products obtained in the market with those ﬁled inthe DNA register.
The Japanese DNA register (JDR) is established based ontechnical speciﬁca�ons similar to those of the Norwegian
DNA register (Glover et al., 2012). It contains DNA proﬁlesof large whales sampled from diﬀerent sources:i)

Scien�ﬁc whaling conducted under special permit
in the Antarc�c (JARPA/JARPAII and NEWREP-A).
This category includes Antarc�c minke whales
collected between 1987/88 and 2018/19, and ﬁnwhales between 2005/06 and 2011/12.
ii) Scien�ﬁc whaling conducted under special permit in the western North Paciﬁc (JARPN/JARPNII

Figure 1.

54

Flow chart of the DNA monitoring system of large
whale products sold in the Japanese retail market.

and NEWREP-NP). This category includes common minke whales collected between 1994 and2019; Brydeʼs whales between 2000 and 2019;sei whales between 2002 and 2019; and sperm
whales between 2000 and 2013.
iii) Commercial whaling within Japanʼs Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ). This category includes common minke, Brydeʼs and sei whales collected since2019.
iv) Bycatches in set nets. This category includes mainly common minke whales sold/used domes�cally(register system established since 1 July 2001).
v) Imports. This category includes North Atlan�c common minke whales from Norway and North Atlan�cﬁn whales from Iceland since 2008.
By the end of 2019, DNA proﬁles of a total of 19,000
individual whales were registered in the JDR.
In the cases of scien�ﬁc whaling and current commercial whaling, samples for gene�c analysis have been collected by researchers from each whale. Samples include
skin samples (two or three pieces of 5×5×5 mm kept
frozen or in 99% ethanol). In addi�on, a large amountof informa�on is collected using established protocols
from every whale sampled including species, catch dateand loca�on (longitude, la�tude), body length, sex andmaturity status.
The Japanese regula�on on bycatches of large whales(established from 1 July 2001) requires that all animals
should be registered with a DNA proﬁle before any
products derived from a bycaught animal are sold in
the market. Details of the regula�on and procedurecan be found in the following web page: h�p://www.
icrwhale.org/pdf/higekujira.pdf. Skin or muscle samples(5×5×5 cm) are taken by the ﬁsherman who intends tosell the bycaught whale and sent to the laboratory at ICR(as frozen samples). Together with the gene�c samples,the ﬁshermen should provide the following informa�onin accordance with an established protocol: species, dateand loca�on of the bycatch, type of set net, body length

Japanʼs system for monitoring of whale products sold in its domestic market through DNA registration
Table 1
The number of whale products by sampling sites in the 2017
survey.
City/Town

MeatBlubber

Ventralgrooves

Total

SapporoSendai
Niigata
Kanazawa
NotoAnamizu
ToyamaHimi
Nagoya
Kochi
Kobe
Osaka
Taiji
Nachikatsuura
Hiroshima
Shimonoseki
Fukuoka
Nagasaki

2327
33514313
14
1012
52
1118
16
14

22
103
510
5
111
8
56
50
656763
1
100
1
5
93
7224
1014
1032
35
16
7
112
4
9
19
34
21
24
13
915
34
35
30

Total

184

8185350

Figure 2.

Sampling sites in the 2017 DNA market survey.

and sex of the bycaught whale to be used (sold).
The following gene�c markers are used in the JDR:i)

An approximately 500 bp fragment of the 5ʹ-endof the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region,
which is used for the purpose of iden�ﬁca�on of
the origin of the whale products (species iden�ﬁca�on), through phylogene�c analyses constructed by ʻtestʼ and ʻtypeʼ sequences;ii) Microsatellite DNA (genotyping with 13–17 lociin each species), which is used for the purpose ofindividual iden�ﬁca�on; andiii) Y chromosome DNA, which is used for the purposeof sex determina�on.

For further details, see Pastene and Goto (2006).
Regarding sampling in the market, one or two technicians, who are familiar with whale products and market
opera�ons, carry out the sampling of whale products
at retail shops each year. On an annual basis, around
350 samples are collected between September andDecember throughout Japan, including around 18 ci�esor towns. Table 1 shows the ci�es/towns surveyed andthe whale products sampled in 2017. Figure 2 shows
the geographical distribu�on of the sampling site in theFigure 3.

An example of species iden�ﬁca�on by phylogene�c analysis of ʻtestʼ and ʻtypeʼ sequences of thewhale products iden�ﬁed as Brydeʼs whale in the2017 market survey. SH: Southern Hemisphere; NA:North Atlan�c; and NP: North Paciﬁc. 17SS+3 digits
indicates the market samples collected in the 2017
survey.

2017 survey. The sampling a�empts to cover the whole
Japanese archipelago, but the method of sampling is nota random procedure. The following informa�on is collected for each whale product sampled: kind of whale55

Technical Reports of the Ins�tute of Cetacean Research (2020)
Table 2
Results of species and individual iden�ﬁca�on of the 2017 market survey. The numbers of individual
whales are shown in parenthesis. NG: Failed DNA extrac�on. NP: North Paciﬁc and NA: North Atlan�c.
Species iden�ﬁca�on

NAntarc�c minke whale
Common minke whale: NP11087

Common minke whale: NAFin whale: NA
Sei whale
Brydeʼs whale
Bairdʼs beaked whale
Striped dolphin
NGTotal

94084
1261
1350

Individual iden�ﬁca�on
Not conducted*
Special permit: Oﬀshore
Special permit: Coastal
BycatchImport from Norway
Import from Iceland
Special permit: Oﬀshore
Special permit: Oﬀshore
Not conducted**
Not conducted**—TotalN—
1 (1)28 (13)58 (37)9 (7)40 (35)84 (66)12 (11)———232 (170)*Individual iden�ﬁca�on of Antarc�c minke whales was not conducted because of the low probabilityof illegal products thereof being introduced into the Japanese market.
**Small cetaceans are not subject to the JDR.

product, sampling locality, date, weight and price. Oncesampled, the products are sent to the laboratory at ICR
for gene�c analysis.
The laboratory work for the whale product samples
were conducted with designated gene�c markers for theJDR described above.
Standard phylogene�c analyses of ʻtestʼ (whale products sampled in the market) and ʻtypeʼ (whale species inthe JDR) mtDNA sequences are conducted to determine
the species of the sampled whale products. Figure 3
shows an example of species iden�ﬁca�on by phylogene�c analysis in the case of Brydeʼs whales sampled inthe 2017 survey.
For individual iden�ﬁca�on, matching of microsatellite genotypes of ʻtestʼ and ʻtypeʼ samples was conductedusing the computer program ʻCervus 3.0 so�ware packageʼ (Kalinowski et al., 2007).
The results of the Japanese market survey in 2017
are shown in Table 2. All 350 market samples, but one,were successfully iden�ﬁed for the species and the origin(area) by the mtDNA analysis. One whale product (friedwhale blubber or ʻKoroʼ in Japanese) failed in the DNA
extrac�on. The microsatellite analysis revealed that the232 collected samples included 170 individual whales
origina�ng from the Northern Hemisphere. The gene�c
proﬁles of the ʻtestʼ and ʻtypeʼ samples matched in all
the cases (Table 2). Individual iden�ﬁca�on for Antarc�cminke whales was not conducted because of the low56

probability of illegal products thereof being introduced
into the Japanese market.
Results of the comparisons between ʻtestʼ and ʻtypeʼ
samples are summarized in the annual report to the Fisheries Agency of the Government of Japan.
Considering results of the work obtained so far, it canbe concluded that the DNA-based system is an eﬀec�vetool for monitoring (tracking origins of) large whale products in the Japanese retail market.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Luis A. Pastene (ICR) for his assistance in preparing this document.

REFERENCES
Glover, K.A., Haug, T., Oien, N., Walløe, L., Lindblom, L.,
Seliussen, B.B. and Skaug, H.J. 2012. The Norwegian minke
whale DNA register: a data base monitoring commercial
harvest and trade of whale products. Fish Fish. 13: 313–332.
Kalinowski, S.T., Taper, M.L. and Marshall, T.C. 2007. Revising
how the computer program CERVUS accommodates genotyping error increases success in paternity assignment. Mol. Ecol.
16: 1099–1106.
Pastene, L.A. and Goto, M. 2006. Report of the Scien�ﬁcCommi�ee. Annex N. Report of the working group on stockdeﬁni�on. Appendix 3. Status of the Japanese DNA register
for large whales. J. Cetacean Res. Manage. (Suppl.) 8:
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