Japan Launches Largest Whale Hunt in 40 Years

They plan to kill 50 humpbacks, 935 minke whales, and 50 fin whales claiming that they can hunt since these animals are not under threat of extinction.
Yeah right.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071118/...ting_humpbacks

By HIROKO TABUCHI, Associated Press Writer
Sun Nov 18, 12:05 PM ET

SHIMONOSEKI, Japan - A defiant Japan embarked on its largest whaling expedition in decades Sunday, targeting protected humpbacks for the first time since the 1960s despite international opposition. An anti-whaling protest boat awaited the fleet offshore.

Bid farewell in a festive ceremony in the southern port of Shimonoseki, four ships headed for the waters off Antarctica, resuming a hunt that was cut short by a deadly fire last February that crippled the fleet's mother ship.

Families waved little flags emblazoned with smiling whales and the crew raised a toast with cans of beer, while a brass band played "Popeye the Sailor Man." Officials told the crowd that Japan should not give into militant activists and preserve its whale-eating culture.

"They're violent environmental terrorists," mission leader Hajime Ishikawa told the ceremony. "Their violence is unforgivable ... we must fight against their hypocrisy and lies."

The whalers plan to kill up to 50 humpbacks in what is believed to be the first large-scale hunt for the once nearly extinct species since a 1963 moratorium in the Southern Pacific put the giant marine mammals under international protection.

The mission also aims to take as many as 935 minke whales and up to 50 fin whales in what Japan's Fisheries Agency says is its largest-ever scientific whale hunt. The expedition lasts through April.

Japan says it needs to kill the animals in order to conduct research on their reproductive and feeding patterns.

While scientific whale hunts are allowed by the International Whaling Commission, or IWC, critics say Japan is simply using science as a cover for commercial whaling.

The anti-whaling group Greenpeace said its protest ship, Esperanza, was moored just outside Japan's territorial waters and would chase the fleet to the southern ocean. There was no immediate word Sunday of an offshore confrontation.

"We are going to do everything in our power to reduce their catch," Karli Thomas, expedition leader on the Esperanza, told The Associated Press by telephone. "Japan's research program is a sham. We demand that the Japanese government cancel it."

An IWC moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1986, but Japan — where coastal villages have hunted whales for hundreds of years — has killed almost 10,500 mostly minke and Brydes whales under research permits since then. Tokyo has argued unsuccessfully for years for the IWC to overturn the moratorium.

The Japanese hunt, which puts meat from the whales on the commercial market, is growing rapidly despite an increasingly vocal anti-whaling movement. This winter season's target of up to 1,035 whales is more than double the number the country hunted a decade ago.

Japan argues that it should have the right to hunt whales as long as they are not in danger of extinction.

The head of Japan's Fisheries Agency said Sunday the fruits of Tokyo's research would help prove that sustainable whaling is possible.

"The scientific research we carry out will pave the way to overturning the moratorium on commercial whaling, which will better help us to utilize whale resources," Shuji Yamada told the ceremony.

The focus on this year's hunt is the humpback, which was in serious danger of extinction just a few decades ago. They are now a favorite of whale-watchers for their playful antics at sea, where the beasts — which grow as large as 40 tons — throw themselves out of the water.

Humpbacks feed, mate and give birth near shore, making them easy prey for whalers, who by some estimates depleted the global population to just 1,200 before the 1963 moratorium. The southern moratorium was followed by a worldwide ban in 1966.

Since then, only Greenland and the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have been allowed to catch humpbacks under an IWC aboriginal subsistence program. Each caught one humpback last year, according to the commission.

The American Cetacean Society estimates the humpback population has recovered to about 30,000-40,000 — about a third of the number before modern whaling. The species is listed as "vulnerable" by the World Conservation Union.

Japanese fisheries officials insist the population has returned to a sustainable level and that taking 50 of them will have no impact.

Well, that just sucks.

Were the Japanese whalers traditionally or is a relatively recent thing for them?

Did they go out in wood boats or did this tradition start when metal ships were the standard?

Though 50 honestly may not hurt the population IF it is 40-50K, I personally think thess creatures think and feel at least as much as we do.

I also like the way they say the research will support their position, without doing any research as yet to support it, that whale hunting is a sustainable industry.

Another sad day to be human.

50 may not decimate the population but the whaling with the Japanese is nothing like the whaling with Eskimos as far as I'm concerned.
Just look what the Japanese do when they harvest sharks for the fins. Take the fins and throw the rest back.
If this was a cultural hunt and was to be used to sustain their people, I would not be opposed to it but this one is strictly for commercial gain with no regards to what damage a hunt like this could do.

Check this site out to hear them.

http://www.whalesong.net/

The Japanese have always been whalers. The hunt is done with strictly modern whaling equipment, and is done for commercial reasons for the whale meat and by products.
50 animals might not be many out of the entire world's population, but it can greatly impact that local population, since we don't know the local numbers.
I find it telling that people are not objecting nearly so much to the greater numbers of minke whales and fin whales, but majorly object to the more personable humpback.
For the record, the Inuit hunts are not done tradionally either, and they "lose" a high number of the animals as unretrieved kills, which don't count as a official "kill".
For the record 2, finning of sharks is not restricted to japanese, and in fact many other countries participate in this deplorable practice. It's wasteful in the extreme, and is decimating populations worldwide. Other countries have jumped on the "delicacy" of shark fin soup.
The Whaling Commission has always been a joke. They designate numbers according to what the various countries want to hunt.