I believe Scientific Whaling is just commercial whaling in "disguise". Besides, many experts say that information won't help the International Whaling Commission (IWC) manage the world's whales if commercial whaling were to start again.

AndyUK : i couldn't agree with you more . Everything you've said ( including Israel's thumbing her nose at the UN)rings so very true .

The poor and the wretched of the earth ( both man and animal) have always - and will continue to suffer . Few ,if any, will ever bother to lift even a little finger to ameliorate their lot.

How can anyone advance the claim that we've come a long way since the 'bad' old Feudal days . The rich have become far richer and more uncaring , the powerful even more so -while the poor have been rendered more impoverished than ever.

RJKT: you are right to compare what Japan is doing to Whales, with the US/UK treatment of people abroad. It is obvious that certain countries in the World can get away with murder, depending on their military/economic status.
When was the last time UN sanctions were brought to bear against the US, UK, China, Russia or Japan. I would mention Israel, but they just ignore sanctions.
This year will see China hosting the Olympic games, despite that country's record on human rights. The athletes will have to contend with some of the worst smog on the planet, and many are rightly concerned about the possible long term effects, to their careers and health. There are many, very poor Chinese people, who have been swept away, like so much garbage, in order to make room for this great event.
In our current World, it doesn't matter if you are an endangered species, or a disenfranchised person, you are unimportant.

Goody two shoes? __ You CoCo? __ Okay, Me too.

KEM PATRICK

i know you were. i was just being a 'goody two shoes' - trying to impress the newcomers..........who haven't yet discovered what a bunch of racist, sexist, hypocritical, earth destroying individuals we are...........

edit?

Sorry Coco, I was joking with you, it won't ever happpen again if Aerobeth is around.

Looks like the Japanese are doing to the poor whales what Bush and his friends have been doing to the poor "Aye-rabs' ( and would love to extend to the "Aye-rans' ) - hunting them down cold-bloodedly .

What with the Japanese and their rapacious craving for whale-meat and the Chinese with their insatiable demand for rhino horns , tiger testicles etc . it will be nothing short of a miracle if any of these magnificent animals aren't driven to extinction within the space of the next few years.

What a terrible price the endangered species are being forced to pay for Japan's and China's incredible prosperity.

KEM PATRICK

'what did you do young lady??' - that's sexist........so now you've given arobtth something more to be appalled at.........btw, we already know how to be decent and live with the earth. it's just jealousy and greed that prevents it happening................

I'm absolutely appalled at the racist and hypocritical attitudes expressed by members of this "progressive community".

~CoCo~, your laptop was a gift??? What did you do young lady???

I don't see many Japanese products anymore, except automobiles. Even our Sony sterio was made in China. Then most of the Japanese cars we see in the dealers lots are made here.

Whales are as human as humans, except they don't build things, drill for oil and then burn it, burn coal, pollute the atmosphere and set off atomic bombs, or spread DU all over the planet. The Orca will attack the young of, or other whales that are sick or injured, but they are canrnivors, perhaps more like humans than other whale specie.

Anyway, why kill them at all? Perhaps someday they could teach us how to be decent and live with the Earth.

Maybe the gray whales are learning to avoid the Navy. Apparently that sonar really rips them up. Just took a quick look at the NRDC site and a couple other things. I would guess the US Navy does a lot more damage to whales than the annual Japanes hunts.

Pesky Japanese products?

the edit won't work AGAIN

~Hi htere ~Sam~ The gray whales did not show up this year near Hawaii. That has never happened.

Forgot! That new US Navy Sonar could be doing more damage to whales than the Japs! Dubya strikes again.

Maybe they call it "scientific" because they have statistical evidence they are not threatening the survival of the species they hunt. Other nations must agree, because Japan has no credible naval force and even the Argentines could send their whaling fleet to the bottom.

The big picture is hunting is no longer a threat to whale species survival. I don't know about pollution and global warming. The Japanese do have surprising brass continuing in the face of world-wide opposition.

The really horrible things the human race is doing now are unique species extinction in rain forests and places like Madagascar, and poaching of elephants, rhinoceri, great apes and big cats, even in national preserves, with huge international organized crime networks. God bless the folks who try to stop this.

Is anyone up to speed on "factory fishing"? From space, the lights from the fishing boats off South America are brighter than the cities.

Kem, I knew "plankton" wouldn't get past your detectors.

Satire's the best, eh?

I wonder how much longer the Bush White House will "allow" Australia to go its on way like this; its way is clearly not the American Way! Bushies care much more about Japanese goodwill than whales. And these uppity Australians have left us in the lurch on global warming and the environment, as well as Iraq, the cheeky little rascals.

But CoCo babe, maybe WTF knows it all.

Ayway, killing whales is not necessary for food or any other reason. If there were no whale meat for sale in Japan, the Japanese would be just fine. Actually, they eat mostly veggies and fish, squid and seaweed, noodles, beans and of course rice. I know, I've lived there. I have seen white radishes, that were four feet long and the size of a man's thigh in the Ashiya farmer's market. The human waste fertilizer they use is fantastic and I've never heard of it causing anyone to become sick because of its use.

WTF -

Is it part of locally-based politics to call people "know nothings" and assume their ill-informed decision to boycott Japanese products stems from moral failings?

Politics touches more of us than what we buy.

WTF

1) my laptop was a gift. i had no control over the brand

2) i don't own a car

3) i'm very careful about where a product is made. if it's not clear, i don't buy

4) i'm vegan

i buy all locally grown organic vegetables and fruits. (i live in europe) i don't know where the bus was made that i sometimes travel on. so i'm not such a know-nothing. at least we are trying to do SOMETHING.

~FOREXTRADER~ Many years ago, I once sat for about two hours outside the stockade where the Gorillas were housed at the San Diego zoo. An old male gorilla was nearby, sitting on a large boulder staring at nothing. After about an hour he and I stared into each others eyes and after awhile I felt as if we were communicating. He was one sad animal. ___ So was I. He wanted his freedom and could I please help him? I felt so guilty that I did not, and still do feel guilty.

A few years ago a young child fell into a gorilla pen at a zoo and a female gorilla mothered and protected the unconscious little boy until help arrived. It was all caught on video and broadcast on every news channel that evening.

Just recently a surfer was attacked by a great white shark and severly injured. What saved him was a pod of dolphin, or porpoise, who surrounded the bleeding man and drove the shark off, then pushed the man to shore. I wonder who would harpoon one of that family of porpoise, kill it and then eat it? Even the Orca have never been known to attack a human, other than any who were attempting to kill one of them.

Japan hunts whales. That is reprehensible to say the very least. But before progressives get all holier than thou on Japan, it is countries like the US that allows hideous experiments on human's closest cousins like Chimpanzees, other great apes and monkeys. Americans also don't seem to mind that chimps, apes, and monkeys are exploited and abused in the entertainment industry. If humans can't even treat their closest relatives with any respect, then God help the whales! Remember, unlike humans, these wonderful creatures like whales and great apes can't speak out on their own behalf!

O Lord, a whole bunch of know-nothings claiming they will boycott Japanese (or Chinese etc) products, and then assuming the high moral ground. Do you really know where anything is made?
1) The computer you are typing on is 100% manufactured and assembled in asia.
2) The Toyota you so despise was assembled in the US of parts manufactured in Australia, India, South Africa and South America.
3) Many products labeled "Made in USA" are not; the packaging is made in USA, but not the item.
4) The sushi you eat could come from anywhere except Japan.

Yeah, y'all are doing a great job of boycotting, know-nothings.

The bottom line is if you are a consumer of products that are NOT local to your area, then most likely these products are manufactured overseas. That is the blowback of globalization. The US is no-longer a manufacturing country (except weapons).

Save the world. Give and consume locally.

jFREE:

In the future, the late Dr. Lilly will be given his due (like G. Bateson, Tesla, R. Carson, et al) as a prescient scientist and humanitarian who did much to advance an understanding of cetaceous beings for bipeds.

BTW: I still have all of his books. Excelsior!

Although I don't condone the Ipponese practice of catching whales for what they blithely term "scientific studies," I can well understand their need for sustenance from the sea.

Japan, like Iceland, doesn't have the land resources available to it that countries like Oz or the US, et al., have. U.S. and Oz citizenry are hypocrites for lambasting the Japanese as regards whale hunting.

BTW: spartacus is a mole!

Remember the early StarTrek movie set in 2300's(?) when Earth is being ravaged with storms from an Alien life energy and the crew has to go back to the 1980's to bring back 2 whales to communicate w it & save the Planet?
Perhaps not so far-fetched as Whales have THREE times the brain-size of humans(we are third after the dolphins) An average whale is a Mozart composing 18-minute 'songs' in it's daily life...when the Humpbacks comes to Hawaii for 3-4 months they basically spend their time fasting,making love,singing,& who knows what else...John Lilly, the famous author & inventor of the isolation tank gave an interview on the program 'Thinking Aloud' years ago & said on the day the Feds cut off his funding(!)doing LSD research w dolphins he took a huge dose of LSD and had an assistant row him out to sea & a whale surfaced, looked him in the eye & 'mind-blasted' him w some much info his human brain couldn't comprend it all...
Japanese & other whalers are barbaric but the whales biggest 'threat'(besides a catastrophic nuclear war)is the continual pollution of our rivers(which flow into) & oceans...we need to stop producing(& using) toxic chemicals which are poisoning all species...May you be blessed w whales in your dreamtime...

Yet more torture of animals (especcially endagered species) for money and "science".

The truth is, phytoplankton is perhaps the VERY best food available on the plantet. It may be the Fountain of Youth Ponce DeLeon was searching for in the area of Florida. That tiny plant also produces most of the oxygen for our planet. We are rapidly killing it off with pollution of our oceans. It is a most serious problem for us and the ocean life, __ especially whales.

It takes about one minute to read this link. Then there are other icons to click on and read about the health benefits of plankton.

Http://www.whyplankton.com

He's more likely a bonehead ~Klever~

MMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOO. Are you so stupid you cannot detect satire?? Obviously I need not ask, obviously you are that stupid. If you are so aware of me and my CONSISTANT posts, you would know beyond a shadow of doubt, that I'm an enviromentalist's enviromentalist. I have posted often on this issue on other like threads and I believe killing a whale is no different, than killing a human.

Will Rogers was an excellent satirest, as was Benjamin Franklin, James Thurber etc. Satire is often the best way to show others vile deeds, as Dryden wrote in his essay on satire. Shove your obnoxious, high horse remarks where the sun don't shine MOOOOOOOOOO.

BYW, SPARTACUS. I do find your obnoxous and racial remarks about the people of Japan to be offensive. I lived in Japan for two years, and they are wonderful people, as are people all over the world. It's the government's leaders and business people who are the ones who deserve our dis-respect.

Spartacus;
Perhaps the restraint of others in not responding to your racist rant is the wisest course-but I can't resist.
A telling part of your venemous post is recommending the purchase of a German car after listing Japanese war crimes. You wouldn't be a skinhead perchance?

Moreover whale meat has aphrodisiac qualities. Yum yum!

OK a good start for the Rudd govt. but still no action on the rape of Tasmania by Gunns Timber.

They have approved a pulp mill that will result in the clear felling of old growth forests increasing. After clearing then plantation timber is planted on the spot with vast amounts of poisonous baits to kill off any hungry native animals.

Australia doesn't profit from whaling so it is easy to take the high moral ground on this. Its time to take a good look at our own environmental vandalism.

You see, as appalling as I find the comment of Kem Patrick, I have a limited respect for him, because if nothing else, he is consistent.

The Japanese realise this in pointing out that we do far worse things to lambs, cows and chickens for our selective carnivorous diets (by "our" I mean Australia) in hellish massive hidden away factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses scattered across our country. In fact, by comparison, the Japanese could convincingly argue, at least the whales get to live until the brutal bloody end their natural lives free.

I'm wildly pleased that people are speaking up for these beautiful sensient beings known as whales.

I just hope that one day, immediately preferably, we acknowledge that every time we order a steak, a lamb chop or a chicken wing, with our heads buried in the sand and the money from our pockets going to someone to do the cruelty we dare not observe ourselves, we (and by "we" I mean anyone who still eats meat) are responsible for an estimated 100 brutally cruel deaths per year in the most heinous of industrial conditions - nothing resembling a natural place for a beautiful animal to be raised nor die.

So I ask you to consider doing this:
(1) Save the whales.
(2) Try to spread the seed of compassion to those such as Kem Patrick who glory in their indifference, and
(3) If you have the compassion in you, find the strength to acknowledge your role in a massive cycle of cruelty and sacrifice "your meat" but for what in fact a very healthy and viable diet, a vegan diet. (don't worry, after 25 years of being vego I still occasionally crave meat, but ethics is about sacrificing what I want in consideration of the needs of others).

Whether you are ready to acknowledge the truth of this or not, therein lies our bizarre Western hypocrisy. Even so, carry on, and save the whales.

A few years ago we decided not to buy anything Japanese until they stopped killing whales. We have 2 Toyota's, Japanese cameras and electronics but no more. Life is AOK without Japanese products and I know this would make a difference if more people did it.
PS: Email the Japanese embassy to let them know.

DEMAND that our congressional representatives issue a FORMAL PROTEST WITH SANCTIONS against the Japanese government for condoning these barbaric practices.

I've never killed anything but the occassional mouse that my mousetraps caught (quick drowning in the toilet bowl). Better than the slow death in the garbage. Some of my relatives hunt for their own tables. I saw my grandfather wring the necks of the chickens that my grandmother fixed for Sunday dinners--that was in the 40's. He used to shoot the feral cats too, when the population grew so large they couldn't feed themselves. My uncle shot deer out of season back then when he was out of a job and trying to feed his family. They were/are never cruel to these animals. Now we buy our meat in the grocery store sans heads and limbs so nothing to stare at us and make us uncomfortable. We are omnivores so until we become herbivores, animals will be raised, hunted, fished, killed for our eating pleasure. To me, cruelty is prolonging fear and pain (maybe like waterboarding??). There are no simple answers to these issues, just many small steps by many people to come to some reasonable agreement. It won't happen in my lifetime. Maybe in my grandchildren's if there's anything left to husband.

@brianct
Agreed. But the key here is the article's statement The resulting pictures caused a strong reaction in Tokyo.. The movement to maintain stable trade with Oz at the expense of whale hunting may come from within Japan.

Just like Abu Ghraib - it takes just a few pictures to create outcry in previously comatose public.

I can only conclude that plankton is a staple on the menu in Tokyo.

Those greedy baleen types just keep on vacuuming it all up for themselves.

Before people praise the Rudd govt too much, Rudd is more concerned about trade relations with japan than whales. Thats why the envoy to Japan said that they had agreed to disagree. Little or nothing will be done if it endagers trade....

Or... wait... I mean to never vote for any Democrat, no matter who!

One of those will surely work! As long as I don't think when I enter the voting booth and push all the same colored levers like a good doggy, everything will be all right!

The only solution to this horrible problem is to vote a straight Democratic ticket!

The only sure fire way to stop this unneeded and uncalled for whale hunt is to stop buying all Japanese made and Japanese sponsored products and all Japanese securities. I now do not Chinese products, especially food, due to their poor practices, use of unhealthy chemical and disrespect for the animals themselves. Not to mention use of cancer causing chemicals in toys and other products designed for children. If these governments and their business entities want access to the US markets, then they need a course in sensitivity training and need to learn to leave the past in the past. Retrain their fisherman do something else besides torture whales. Their cruelty towards such rare and intelligent animals is inhumane and needs to be stopped forthwith.

right, now i boycott japanese products as well as chinese...........strange that a nation who suffered horrific violence should be capable of this......

Thank god we got rid of Little Johnny Howard the Creep. Kevin Rudd is showing the world what a progressive leader can do. After many years in the wilderness of f*cked-up conservatism, Oz is starting to rediscover it's green roots.

No such luck for America, tho'. It's going to hell in a handbasket.

Thank you to the Australian Govt. for making this Public. I watch it on BBC the other morning. It alarmed alot of people around the world. Hopefully this will be the start to ending the slaughter of Whales.

A double bacon whaleburger with cheeze.

Well, that solves that. The Japanese officially have no honor. Their government, at the very least.

Then I heard a few days ago how 130-some new McDonald's are opening in Japan. Good cultural trends.

As usual, this is not about science or culture. It's about money. The value of that whale on the food market. At a retail price of $64 / lb (in 1996) and an average weight of 16000 lb per whale, the 935 Minkes alone are worth close to $US957M (or $US1.3B corrected to 2008 dollars). This doesn't even count the 50 larger whales, the total value of which can conceivably be worth equally as much.

When this much money is involved, no one who stands to profit from the activity can be trusted to be honest about the "scientific benefits" of the hunt. This also explains the vehemence and rancor exhibited by the Japanese whalers and their government counterparts.

Nothin like a good ol char-broied whale steak, smothered in mushrooms and bamboo shoots, stewed in a sweet and sour soy source. Then some sugared dried squid mixed in a sticky rice cake for desert. __ Yummy-yum.

http://counterpunch.org/watson02082008.html

In 1997, I had Greenpeace investigated by the National Marine Fisheries Service of the United States for participating in a whale hunt. Greenpeace crew on the Arctic Sunrise actually towed a slaughtered bowhead whale to shore as a favour for the Inupiat whalers in the Bering Sea. In doing so, they violated both U.S. and international law. The incident was reported widely in the Alaskan media and the whalers used the incident to ridicule Greenpeace at the 1997 International Whaling Commission meeting in Monaco.

And it is not just whales that Greenpeace is betraying. Melanie Duchin of Greenpeace Alaska who also sent out a personal appeal to raise money to "save" the whales said last year that Greenpeace is not opposed to the hunting of polar bears. She was quoted in the Alaskan media as saying, "If the species of certain populations against the backdrop of global warming can sustain a commercial hunt, than we're not going to oppose it."

And Greenpeace raises millions of dollars from people concerned about the cruel slaughter of seals in Canada, yet Greenpeace has not opposed the Canadian seal hunt in more than two decades. The official Greenpeace position on the harp seal slaughter, the largest massacre of marine mammals on the planet is that the hunt is "sustainable."

Its just a vivisection industry of the oceans. Anything is justified today in the name of research-say you are trying to cure cancer and you can do as much torture as you like. If one dares to challenge the religion of science and the clergy of technology you get accused of being a heretic and damning humanity to the Dark Ages.

Paul Watson has a counterpunch.org article today on how Greenpeace profits form whaling. The link its working--cant wait to read it. Greenpeace gave up on chasing the whalers this year so it shows what a low priority they give to it.

Would love to line up those whalers and shoot a harpoon through them. For sceintific reasons of course.

"" It provoked anger in Tokyo and a warning to Australia from a Japanese official that this was "dangerous emotional propaganda that could cause serious damage to the relationship between our two countries". ""

What is that childish crap, if you tell on me, I wont be your friend?

My major question is this, if the Japanese whaling is truly for "scientific purposes," then where are the research results?
In what journal have they been published and what conclusions have been reached?
If the are no such articles in peer reviewed science journals then the whaling is nothing but a lie.

And even if such articles do exist, what is the actual "advancement" of science that is being accomplished by the slaughter?

Come to think of it, there is another major question? Who is benefiting from the whale deaths? Is it really worth the cost of the fleet to keep dissecting whales?

So where are the sanctions against Japan?! If someone in the middle east farts the wrong way there are harsh economic sanctions against them, defended by world governments regardless of the number of children killed by the sanctions. I'm not suggesting killing Japanese children, but why hasn't there been an outright trade embargo against Japanese fish and other products? Could it be that we're not currently trying to steal oil from Japan??

Bravo to the Australians for showing the world how truly barbaric whale hunting is. Japan and other whaling nations stubbornly cling on to this activity for no other reason than they make a great amount of money at it.