Outrage over Japan's plan to slaughter humpback whales

Yep. A bit too close to the truth of the situation.

It tells only half of the truth. Japan inports 60% of the foods from abroad currently (calorie base). In case of the crisis, Japanese people might be obliged to capture whales for essential foods not simply for palatable diet.

Actually, satt, it is 100% true about the so-called "scientific" justifications behind culling of whales right now.

Sorry.

Be that as it may, I do not eat whale meat right now. Even the smell of the burning oil from the whale meat gives me a stomach ache.

I believe you.

But this is not an attack on you, satt. Please don't take it this way.

This tread is an expression of outrage against the killing of whales for so-called "scientific" purposes.

I say the truth. I do not lie. I do not eat whale meat unless it is the matter of life and death.

I know you're being truthful, satt.

Humpback kill furore sent home
Brendan Nicholson and Andrew Darby
December 12, 2007/the AGE

JAPAN'S new ambassador says he has reported back to Tokyo about the growing anger in Australia about Japanese whaling, particularly the plan to kill humpback whales.

But Taka-aki Kojima said Japan's scientific whaling program was carried out in accordance with international law and tensions over such issues should not be allowed to interfere with the strategic relationship between the two countries.

In his first public appearance since his appointment to Canberra, Mr Kojima told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that humpbacks had been included in the second stage of the Japanese research program in part to assess their impact on fish stocks.

Humpbacks have become increasingly common along Australia's coastlines on their way to and from Arctic waters and have become a tourist attraction.

During the election campaign Labor said Australians considered whaling barbaric and said it would use long-range patrol planes to gather evidence to be used against Japan in international tribunals.

Yesterday Mr Kojima said Japan would welcome any legal or scientific challenge.

The Japanese fleet is already in Arctic waters and is expected to begin the slaughter of 1030 whales within days.

Mr Kojima said he and Japan's consuls-general in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney had reported back to the Japanese Government on the emotional public reaction, protests and media reports in Australia and other countries to the plan to target humpback whales. ...<cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/humpback-kill-furore-sent-home/2007/12/11/1197135468454.html

I see how the Seashepherds "Hunter" has been renamed the "Steve Irwin" and has been outfitted for ramming.
Im with them in spirit.

cj may recall that, in 1774 a minority of colonists bucked the prevailing logic and determined to be self governing and independent. Using cj's logic, wed still be drinking tea and worshipping Anglican.

The Steve Irwin??? OMFGROTFL!!!!

Some times (like when looking at the above) I wonder if cjhsa is, in fact, twelve years old. (I teach them & I know 12 year old boys very well! :wink: )

Wish you hadn't brought him back into this discussion, farmer.

I'm 12 years old, black, and gay. Didn't you know that about me already?

you have it all wrong
Can't you see we need a hand
In the navy
Come on, protect the motherland
In the navy
Come on and join your fellow man
In the navy
Come on people, and make a stand
In the navy, in the navy, in the navy (in the navy).

If the Japs can use exploding harpoons I expect it will be ok for us to explode something as well.

I'll accept that, cjhsa. If you said it, it must be the truth ...

But moving right along ...

Rudd drafts plans to spy on whalers

Andrew Darby and Michelle Grattan
December 14, 2007/the AGE

AUSTRALIA is developing plans to monitor Japanese whaling in order to mount international legal action over the controversial Antarctic hunt.

It has also reversed previous government policy and will back a long-running Federal Court case against the hunt.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government was considering the best way to collect data to help in a legal case against the fleet.

But with the whaling about to begin, including a "research" kill of humpback whales that migrate along the Australian coast, anti-whaling groups are calling for urgent diplomatic action.

The Rudd Government went to the election promising to step up pressure over whaling, but has so far declined to spell out its plans. Minister for Defence Joel Fitzgibbon and Attorney-General Robert McClelland have taken advice on how to deal with the whalers.

The Japanese fleet operates in polar waters, where distance and ice restrict options, both for the RAAF's long-range Orion aircraft, and the navy's frigates. An Australian fisheries patrol vessel, Oceanic Viking, is ice-strengthened and its crew is equipped and trained to operate in polar waters.

Speaking in Bali, Mr Rudd said the Government took seriously international obligations to protect the whales.

"We have said in the past that we would look at measures which would fortify any future case to be brought before international tribunals on the implementation of Japan's whaling policy, in particular Japan's assertion that these are for research purposes, not commercial purposes," he said.

"We are therefore actively considering the appropriate measures for the collection of data which would assist in any future legal case which the Government may embark upon."

At its first meeting, the new cabinet also decided to support a case against the Japanese hunt in Australian Antarctic waters.

The decision overturns the previous government's opposition to the case, in which Humane Society International is calling on the Federal Court to act against the Japanese whaling company, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha.

The society is arguing that Japan's official reports to the International Whaling Commission show that it has killed hundreds of whales in waters off the coast of the Australian Antarctic Territory designated as an Australian whale sanctuary.

From his ship, the Steve Irwin, which is searching for the fleet, anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said the problem is a matter of urgency as the hunt is about to begin. "If the Rudd Government is serious about this, it's actually going to have to do much more than take films of the whalers," he said.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said it welcomed surveillance to build a legal case.

"We believe international legal action is the only way to bring an end to Japan's whaling," said fund campaigner Darren Kindleysides. "But what can (the Government) do as an immediate response to these first kills of humpback whales?"

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rudd-drafts-plans-to-spy-on-whalers/2007/12/13/1197135656425.html

Article from the Sydney Morning Herald, 4 days ago ...:

Apathy in the face of whale slaughter
Paul Sheehan
December 10, 2007/SMH


Illustration: Michael Mucci

This morning, in the grey swells of the Southern Ocean, a pirate ship will enter the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory. It is a black ship, bearing a black pirate flag, the Jolly Roger. For the past five days it has sailed south, so that it can take position and wait for its prey.

The prey is expected to arrive on Saturday, the day when Japanese whaling ships, operating under the patronage of the Japanese Government, are scheduled to begin hunting minke whales, humpbacks and fin whales in southern waters. This is an area where Australia has declared an exclusive economic zone extending 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from the Antarctic coastline in a large swath of Antarctic waters. This is prime whale territory.

Yet the only intimidating presence that stands between the whaling ships and the slaughter of more than a thousand whales - the Japanese have set themselves a quota of 1030 - will be a private ship sailing under a Jolly Roger on which the crossed bones have been replaced by a trident and a shepherd's crook. The shepherd's crook signifies that this ship is operated by Sea Shepherd, the environmental vigilante of the sea.

"We shouldn't be doing this, we shouldn't have to," the ship's captain and Sea Shepherd's founder, Paul Watson, told me by satellite phone a few days ago. "If you want to stop pirates, you have to send pirates. It was a pirate, Captain Morgan, who shut down the slave trade in the Caribbean. It wasn't the British navy."

The black ship is registered in Rotterdam, captained by a Canadian, manned by an international crew and operates on the outer edges of the law.

"We have been called eco-terrorists," Watson said. "It's a strange label because we've never hurt anyone, while the Japanese have filled the ocean with blood. It's an audacious hypocrisy."

Until last Wednesday, the ship was named the Robert Hunter. It was renamed the Steve Irwin just before sailing from Melbourne to spend two months in Antarctic waters. The ship was relaunched by Terri Irwin, Steve's widow. It was renamed not just in honour of Steve Irwin, but because he was a supporter of Sea Shepherd and because Australia has a potentially major role in stopping whaling in this region.

"I would like the Rudd Government to keep its campaign promise," Watson said. "Kevin Rudd made good his promise on Kyoto and I hope he'll do the same on whaling. I'd like the Australian navy to order the Japanese whaling vessels out of Australian waters. Most of the whales are killed inside the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory.

"We'd like them to do what they do to the Indonesians and the Uruguayans and the toothfish poachers. But there seems to be a special dispensation for the Japanese. Australia goes aggressively after poor countries like Indonesia and Uruguay, but not Japan, even though the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory are marked on the charts as an Australian exclusive economic zone.

"They won't send the navy," Watson predicted. "It's all about trade. Japan is a major trading partner for Australia. When Japan decided to target the humpbacks in Australian waters, an endangered species, they were sending a message to Australia. They are saying, 'You won't do anything about it'. It's a real slap in the face.

"The Japanese Government is trying to exert some chauvinistic superiority. They have already said that whaling is a question of pride. They still pretend the hunt is for research, yet they haven't published a single article in a peer-reviewed journal, while they have killed 15,000 whales."

Watson will never be mistaken for a moderate. He has a long record of intransigent zeal on behalf of environmental causes. But he's got the big picture right, especially on whaling. The Japanese whaling fleet is run by the Institute for Cetacean Research in Tokyo, which pretends to be a government research agency but produces no research. This is Japan's insult to the world's intelligence. It is also a reminder that previous Japanese governments sponsored the slaughter of millions of people across Asia.

Sea Shepherd presents the new Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, with a problem. On September 18, in the lead-up the federal election, Garrett issued this statement: "A Rudd Labor government would not stand in the way of Humane Society International's legal challenge in the Federal Court to request an injunction to stop Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd from killing whales within the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

"Labor has a clear policy position that we will enforce Australian law banning the slaughter of whales in the Australian Whale Sanctuary [thus within 200 nautical miles of the continental shelf]. Therefore, Labor would enforce any injunction the court decides to grant against Japanese whalers."

(Why is it left to private organisations like the Humane Society, Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd to do all the dirty work on whaling?)

"There is an ocean of clear water between the Howard Government and Labor on the issue of whaling," Garrett continued. "Labor has the guts to stand up to the Japanese whalers - the Howard Government will do no such thing. Malcolm Turnbull is all talk and no action … "

Tough talk, but when I sought a response from Garrett to the imminent arrival of the Japanese whalers and Sea Shepherd, I received this text message: "Existing Labor policy includes increased diplomatic effort, consideration of legal avenues, and monitoring."

Monitoring! If the Australian navy does not make an appearance off Antarctica before Christmas, it will be a disaster not just for whales but will stick a harpoon into the credibility of the Federal Labor Government when the Southern Ocean boils with the blood of innocents being slaughtered on its watch.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/whale-watch/apathy-in-the-face-of-whale-slaughter/2007/12/09/1197135280066.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Letter from Paul Watson (Sea Shepherd) to Australia's Minister for the Environment, Perter Garrett. Dated 12/12/2007:

Captain Paul Watson calls on the New Australian Government to Act for the Whales


The Honorable Peter Garrett MP
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts

Dear Sir,

I heard today that you will not be sending a Naval vessel to monitor the activities of the illegal Japanese whaling fleet in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory?

Can you confirm if this is true?

Thousands of our members and supporters voted for you on the basis that you would take a more aggressive stand against outlaw whaling than the former government.

Perhaps, the Japanese Ambassador has paid Mr. Rudd a visit to explain who is master and who is servant in the Asian Pacific territory?

Sir, I have 16 Australians on my crew of 41 onboard the Steve Irwin. I have a media crew and citizens from 9 other nations. We are on a dangerous mission and the Japanese have threatened to use force against us if we interfere with their operations. We of course will do nothing that will threaten injury to any of the crew on the Japanese vessels.

I would like to pose a couple of questions to you.

1. What will your government do if the Japanese injure or kill any of the Australian or non-Australian crew on my ship?

2. What will your government do if the Japanese whalers seize and hold hostage any Australian citizens from the Steve Irwin?

Sir, We need you to send a Naval ship not just to monitor the Japanese fleet but to protect the life and liberty of Australian citizens onboard the Steve Irwin.

Australia should really be defending the sovereignty of the Australian Antarctic Territory. Why does Australia intervene against toothfish poachers in these same waters and seize their vessels but does nothing about the killing of the whales? Is Australian law applicable only to poor nations like Uruguay and Indonesia?

Don't you think that trade wise that Japan needs Australia more than Australia needs Japan?

If you decide that your government will refrain from sending a naval vessel down to these waters, I fear you may be placing our lives in danger by leaving our fate to the merciless, remorseless killers of the whales.

Sir, you have it in your power to win the gratitude of the Australian people and people the world over by exercising Australian authority over Australian territory. I implore you to send a ship to these waters. I implore you to do more than to continue to talk about the illegal slaughter. I implore you to take action.

Please do not allow this promise to be broken for I fear that it will frame the integrity of your government for years to come if you do so.

We are now closing in on the coast of Antarctica and we will begin our search for these vicious outlaw killers. The whales could really use your support Sir, today, now! We cannot afford another charade of diplomatic posturing that the Japanese government laughs off. Don't you see that by targeting these humpbacks they are slapping the Australian people in the face and saying, "we will do whatever we wish in your territorial waters and your government has not got the guts to stop us."

Every one of my Australian crewmembers voted for Labor. Some refrained from voting Green just because of your promise to defend the whales. Is this a broken promise? Must I tell my crew that your government is just business as usual and to hell with the whales and the environment. Build the pulp meals, cut down the forests and slaughter the whales - is this the business as usual position that Labor will now take or will you make history as a government that keeps it's promises and takes an aggressive stand to defend this planet, our oceans and the diversity of life.

I hope so, I sincerely hope so because when even the best of governments fail to act and consistently fail to act then desperation leads to disaster. Will we lose the whales Sir?

Are you a friend of the whales or a friend of Japanese trade and commerce first and foremost?

Sincerely,

Captain Paul Watson
Master - The Steve Irwin
Master - The Farley Mowat
Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society


http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_071212_1.html

From a 2006 article:

Japanese Losing Their Appetite for Whale Hunt


"These days, almost no Japanese under the age of 60 eats whale meat; it was only consumed on a large scale during shortages after the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Where it is available today, customers are almost entirely elitist gourmets with plenty of money -- or misguided nationalists."

"Undisputed research by a British opinion-poll firm in 1999 found only 1 percent of Japanese acknowledged eating "kujira no niku" -- whale meat -- even once a month, and 61 percent said the last time they ate it was when they were children. My own telephone inquiries at three leading supermarket chains found not one selling it these days, even canned, and an Internet search of gourmet restaurants showed it to be rarer than lamb chops in the mainly fish-eating nation."

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=f8a4b8a76bd34dbd64afc8a6c6b7dd11

But business is working on it, Stradee. They have to do something with all that whale meat! This article is from last month.:

Japanese company to sell takeaway whale curry
Posted Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:40pm AEDT


Japan has launched its annual whale hunt. (File photo) (AFP: Greenpeace/Kate Davison)

A Japanese company says it will start offering whale curry in its takeaway business lunches, as the country pursues its controversial whale hunt in the Antarctic.

This month Japan infuriated its Western allies, particularly Australia and New Zealand, when it launched its annual whale hunt, which for the first time will also kill humpback whales.

Asian Lunch, which says it sells 1,000-1,500 lunch boxes daily in Tokyo's business districts, will offer the meat once a week, starting on Thursday with a South Asian-style keema curry.

"I hope many young women will want to have it as it's healthy with high protein and low fat. It's also rich in iron," company spokeswoman Yuka Yamaguchi said.

The firm is also hoping to attract young men who have never tasted the meat before.

Most Japanese do not eat a lot of whale, proof to critics that the hunt is unnecessary.

But the Government is trying to promote the meat, which is now served mostly in specialist restaurants.

Asian Lunch decided to introduce whale after being approached by Whale Labo, a seller set up last year with the backing of the Government's Fisheries Agency, Ms Yamaguchi said.

"There is no illegality about the meat as it comes from the Government's research whaling. We also wanted to try out a new food material," she said.

As for protests against Japan's whaling, Ms Yamaguchi said the company just "does not want to waste meat once their lives were deprived of for research".

"We would feel uncomfortable if we hunted whales by ourselves for the purpose of eating them," she said.

Japan catches whales using a loophole in the 1986 global moratorium that allows "lethal research" on the giant mammals.

Environmentalists say it is simply commercial whaling in disguise.

- AFP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/27/2102845.htm

It's Saturday. I guess the slaughter begins today.: