Message #244582

[Christiana Hanaman]

Death in the Southern Ocean

Photograph by Kate Davison, Eyevine/Redux

Japanese whalers aboard the Kyo Maru Number One landed these whales in the Southern Ocean during the 2005-06 season—and did so despite the determined efforts of activists who used their own vessels to try to thwart the hunt.

The Japanese annually kill many whales in waters the IWC designates as the Southern Ocean Sanctuary—some 19 million square miles (50 million square kilometers) of Antarctic waters where most of the world's whales feed. The whalers do this work in the name of science.

"The IWC went into force in the 1940s and at that time there were not a lot of nonlethal scientific methods available so it allowed any country to unilaterally conduct scientific whaling," said World Wildlife Fund's Henry. "Since 1986, when the commercial whaling moratorium went into place, Japan has conducted this scientific whaling and the exemption does allow you to sell the by-product on the market." So Japan's whaling is technically legal, Henry added, if not supported by most IWC members.

Activists like Paul Watson's Sea Shepherd Society have attempted to disrupt the hunt by getting in the way of harpoons. They claim that Japan's fleet is not pursuing legitimate science, and is therefore not following the letter of the law.

Published July 23, 2012