Japan to hold whale hunts despite activist threats - Yahoo! News
Just a link I found today that talks about Japan's intent to continue whale-hunting, and the reasons why they continue to do so. I thought it might be of interest to the thread.
Personally the reasons given that it's for research into whale populations seems rather ridiculous, particularly as the hunting would diminish the whale population which would then undermine the point of the research, which is to prove that whale numbers are sufficient enough to lift a whaling ban. It seems like a rather transparent guise simply to hunt more whales. Not to mention that - as I believe others may have mentioned - whale meat is still purchaseable in Japan, so obviously it's not
entirely for research.
I also worry about the human side of this. They say they're upping security to keep the whalers safe from activists, but knowing how determined and violent activisits can get I wonder if the whalers can actually ever be safe in international waters. It seems like a great risk to human life to me, and perhaps it would be best to whale-hunt solely in Japanese waters?