whaling

Send a whale to Japan with a message to stop whaling.

Two Greenpeace activist are being held for 23 days without charges for exposing a scandal at the heart of the whaling industry.

Starting things off with a bang, Chile declared a permanent ban on whaling on the opening day of the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting. The Pacific Ocean-bordering country is playing host to the conference, where tensions are running high.

Junichi Sato is not only a whale activist in Japan (and there ain't many people who can put THAT on their business card), he's also a blogger. And he's been arrested for the crime of exposing the truth.AFP reported "Sato, writing on his blog shortly before his arrest, appealed for a continued probe into the alleged whale meat embezzlement. "I just want to appeal to the hearts of people involved in the whale embezzlement case: 'Do you think it's alright to remain silent?'" Sato wrote.

join the 1000 blog petition against whaling. This article discusses the progress of the petition and also goes into a call to declare more marine nature reserves that are totally commercial fishing free.

The fight gets ugly between The Steve Irwin and Japanese Whalers.

With financial support from Greenpeace, humpback whales have been tagged by the Cook Islands Whale Research and Opération Cétacés. The satellite tagging, skin biopsies and photo identification has already provided a huge amount of information about the migration patterns of threatened humpback populations. The "scientific whaling" carried out by the Japanese government does not address the most important needs identified by the International Whaling Commission, and can not be seen as justifiable. This year their quote includes 50 humpback whales.

A new poll released today shows that the number of Japanese who don't support whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is growing - the 69% figure is a slight increase on the number found by a similar poll last year. Perhaps surprisingly, the Greenpeace commissioned poll showed that 87% were unaware that their tax money was being used to subsidise the whaling operation.

Eco-warrior Paul Watson is engaged in a furious fight with both Japanese whalers and Greenpeace

 A British anti-whaling protester was detained on board a Japanese harpoon ship last night after storming the vessel in an attempt to scupper Japan’s controversial whale hunt.

The Nisshin Maru, the 8,000-tonne flagship of Japan’s whaling fleet, left Shimonoseki port for the Antarctic along with catcher boats around midday on Sunday, environmental group Greenpeace said, adding that others in the fleet were expected to follow soon.

Greenpeace have launched the Great Whale Trail, following the migration of humpback whales from the warm tropical waters of the South Pacific, where they breed, to the icy Southern Ocean around Antarctica, where they feed. And they're doing it via satellite tracking and Google Maps. Nifty.

In a step greeted with relief by environmental campaigners, Iceland have announced that they will issue no new quotas for commercial whaling. Fisheries minister Einar K Guofinnsson said that “I will not issue a new quota until the market conditions for whale meat improve and permission to export whale products to Japan is secured. There is no reason to continue commercial whaling if there is no demand for the product.”