The whaling fleet is scheduled to put to sea in a matter of days and has set a target
of 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales, according to Shigeki Takaya, a spokesman for
the Ministry of Agriculture’s Far Seas Fisheries Division.

Last year, Tokyo announced that it would also take 50 humpbacks for the first time
since the sixties, provoking outrage from anti-whaling nations. That plan was dropped
and plans to hunt the species this year have again been cancelled.

“We received a lot of pressure from around the world, but particularly Australia
and New Zealand, so we will not be catching humpbacks as part of the research (more…)

Here, have a slice of great news to go with your morning coffee :

Out of the water leaps the humpback whale, like the Phoenix rising from the fire,
they’re baaaack! The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has
revised its classification of the whales from “vulnerable” to “of least concern”
on its latest annual list of endangered animals. Literally on the brink of
extinction, down to under 1500 in 1966. Their numbers have increased since
international and federal protections were put in place in the 1960s and ’70s
and a international commercial whaling ban was imposed in 1986. The population
is now estimated to be 40,000 mature adults and 15,000 juveniles. Still low, for
these 50 foot majestic creatures that once roamed all the Earth’s oceans were at
240,000 strong in pre-whaling days. But now, they are on the road to recover and (more…)