| There is no excuse to hunt whales. There is no justification for food or clothing, even the Japense don't really eat it - even under the current farce of "scientific" research whaling they have stockpiles of whale meat.
There are not very many left. Go and look up the figures on the BBC site. It will surprise you how few there are. They tend to take a long time to reach sexual maturity and offspring are dependant for a long time.
Luckily this doesn't mean too much yet, but the anti-whaling countries really need to get their act in gear before it does. I may well devote my energies to this end once we are in Oz.
It isn't just Japan, Iceland and Norway, although they are the most vocal. Some of the smaller Caribbean countries are the ones voting for, these are the ones we can personally make a difference to by not visiting since they are so reliant on tourism for income.
These countries need education in the same why with Sharks in the Maldives, that a live shark is worth much more in $ than a dead one.
Remember it is not just whales at risk, 100s of millions of sharks are killed every year.  |