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Whale Update

Recently, the Rudd government sent out a boat to get photographical evidence to prove that the Japanese whaling ships were breaking the law by whaling. Under this pressure, the Japanese government said that they would no longer hunt humpback whales in those areas or at all.

However, some men from Sea Shepherd (the organisation who will take fierce action against whalers) then jumped onto the Japanese whaling ship Hushin Maru No.2 and were taken as 'hostage' but were then released. The men were Benjamin Potts, an Australian and Giles Lane, from the UK.

The original plan of the men was to board the Yushin Maru to deliver a message to the Japanese captain that the whalers were in 'violation of international conservation law by targeting endangered species in an established whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling'. That means that they were breaking the international conservation law by hunting down whales in a sanctury for them and that they were breaking a rule which tells them not to whale in there to make money out of it. They also told the captain that Australia had just passed a court ruling barring Japanese whalers from the 'Australian Antarctic Economic Exclusion Zone'.

We now are told that the two men planted a tracking device whilst they were on the ship, which was clever, but a wee bit naughty! Sea Shepherd has since been throwing 'non-toxic goo' on the whaling ships.

Australia wants to end an exception to the 'no whaling' IWC (International Whaling Commission) law which allows whales to be killed for 'scientific research purposes' because Japan doesn't do any research on the whales...other than what they taste like! Japan kills up to 1,000 whales annually under its 'scientific programme'.

Japan's 'Traditional School Lunch Week'

For those who have school lunches, imagine coming to school with a hungry belly and finding whale meat on the menu. For children in Japan, this situation is actually happening!

Children living in Japan have not eaten whale meat as part of their school lunch for 26 years. But recently , Japan has launched a ‘traditional school lunch week’ which includes school children being served whale meat. 10 tonnes of the unsold meat has been dumped in 254 schools across Yokohama in attempt to tempt the children into having an appetite for the meat. 200,000 school lunches of whale meat salad marinated in sesame sauce were served on January 21st and 22nd.

The Liberal Democratic Party Upper House leading member Yoshimasa Hayashi, chairman of Japan’s IWC committee admitted that there was a ‘deliberate attempt to revive the domestic market for whale meat’. He then said that he saw no problem with feeding the meat to the school children as part of a PR campaign. “We are trying very hard to regain a market for whale eating,” Mr. Hayashi said. He then said that if Japan was allowed to extend its ‘coastal whaling program’ (Whaling near the shores of Japan), it would seriously consider ending whaling operations in the high seas.

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Story: Imogen Wadlow
Source: The Daily Telegraph