It's time for the whale hunting season again.. the Japanese ships of the whaling fleet are leaving and heading back to the culling ground, to do so called 'scientific testing' on 1000 whales. The 'scientific test' involves harpooning the whale, measuring and weighing the carcass, slicing and dicing.. and finally delivering it to markets... boxed and frozen. In 1986 the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling and in 1994 the Southern Ocean was declared a Whale Sanctuary. The Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ) keep on sending the fleet of whalers back to the Southern Ocean due to a loophole in international law. The IWC has said it doesn't need the data produced by the 'research' and strongly urges Japan to call it off. The scale of the hunt leads only to one conclusion, that this is commercial whaling. Don't they understand that just words ain't enough to stop the whale hunting.. the few whales that are left are screaming out for some real punitive actions to end this cruelty. Fix the loopwhole.. once the whales are gone, then it'll be to late to do something about it.

Sanctuary means refuge or safe haven, which was ment to be when the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was created. According to Greenpeace this year nearly 1,000 whales will receive neither. The Sanctuary is there to help whales recover after over a century of relentless persecution sent populations plummeting. Japan does not respect the Sanctuary like the other countries. Earlier this year, the FAJ announced at the annual meeting of the IWC its intention to more than double its 'scientific' cull to 935 minke whales and to add 50 fin whales and 50 humpback whales over the next two years. Yeah right, lets eradicate everything in our oceans while we are at it.. 'cause IWC won't do anything, it's easier to look the otherway. Both humpback and fin whales are listed as endangered species.

The Fisheries Agency of Japan claims.. 'according to Japanese cultural values… whales are viewed as a food source'. But according to an opinion poll made in 2002.. it's only four percent of the Japanese population that regularly eat whale meat nine percent rarely eat it; 53 percent haven't eaten it since childhood and 33 percent have never eaten it. In reality few Japanese people view whale meat as a vital food source and even fewer actually eat it. It is simply not true that whaling is important to the Japanese public and the whaling fleet have no need to sail off to the Antarctic whale sanctuary. The FAJ also claims that whales are contributing to the collapse of fish stocks. 99 per cent of the catch will be Southern Ocean minke whales which eat krill and not fish. Only the newly added endangered Fin and Humpback whales eat fish. We must surely be able to spare a few fish for endangered whales. I most certainly would and will if that's the solution.