Sreescanda's Blog: Is Pres Obama For or Against Whaling?

Australian Prime Mininster Kevin Rudd has given Japan an ultimatum: cease whaling in the Southern Ocean or face international legal action. Rudd has been under fire for not keeping a campaign promise to take the Japanese to court over whaling. "But that's the bottom line and we're very clear to the Japanese, that's what we intend to do," he told the Seven Network today. "If that fails, then we will initiate court action before the commencement of the whaling season in November 2010."

Japanese whalers are accused of causing a collision on the high seas. To read more, link to the story on BREAKING NEWS!

Bob Barker is a new ship that's joining the war against whaling. The vessel was retrofitted thanks to a $5 mil donation from Price is Right legend, Bob Barker. Read more. Link to it on Breaking News!

Go the Breaking News!
Anti-whaling activists are using a small, space-age-like vessel to scare off Japan's whaling fleet from Antarctic waters - with a ghostly tune as its main weapon.

See Breaking News about a juvenile humpback whale entangled in hundreds of feet of heavy rope off Hawaii's coast. The situation is "life-threatening.''

It has been widely acknowledged that Japan carries two types of minke whale stocks:
1) the O-stock, which is hunted under the IWC loophole of "scientifc and research" whaling;
2) the J-stock, which is substantially depleted and has been protected since 1986 but continues to be killed as "bycatch."

A new study now finds that Japan slaughters just as many J-stock whales as they do the O-stock. Much of this bycatch is unregulated and goes unreported. Using DNA testing, green activists have also ...

According to the the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Iceland killed at least 93 endangered fin whales this summer. Fin whales are second to blues in size and are still only now slowly recovering from the unregulated yester-years of whaling. Along with the 63 minke whales that Iceland slaughtered during the same period, this total represents the biggest commercial whale hunt the North Atlantic has seen in several decades.

The Environmental Investigation Agency released footage of a whale hunt by Japan. The pro-slaughter nation, which has been successful at finding loopholes to continue hunting despite a ban on commercial whaling, is seen killing rare Baird Beaked Whales. Considered "small cetaceans" they are exempt from the worldwide ban. The Japanese take about 60 beaked whales every year. The meat is sold in supermarkets even though they contain toxic level so mercury.
Go to BREAKING NEWS for the video link.

In a report published by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), revenues from whale watching in 2oo8 reached 1.3 billion pounds, double what it was a decade ago. This suggests that whale watching is far more profitable than killing them. Globally, whale watching has grown by 3.7% each year in the last decade. Last year alone, 13 million tourists in 119 countries went whale watching amd created almost 13,000 jobs.

On the other hand, A World Wildlife Fund analysis studied the range of d

New controversy brewed ahead of the International Whaling Commission meeting next week in Maderia that is already contentious. Greenland wants IWC approval to slaughter 50 humpback whales in a semi-autonomous Danish territory and has sought the support of Sweden to garner European support.

Adding to the animosity today was confirmation that, between 1943 and 1976, Russia—then the Soviet Union—had killed 200,000 more whales than they reported, including calves, pregnant females and severely enda