35 minke whales caught in waters around Hokkaido

at least not in the Antarctic whale reserve on the other side of the world. But still disgusting and illegal.

Dead wrong fully legal as are the dolphin hunts as Japan sets a country-wide limit other places besides Taji also hunt.

You guys really need to get informed.

"We were able to grasp the distribution patterns (of the whales) in waters around Hokkaido in detail," an official of the group said.

Ha ha! I love this 'scientific' statement. "Yes, we were able to determine where the whales were, so we killed them." Those 35 whales should be enough to feed the tiny demand for whale meat for the next few years.

@pacint - You guys really need to get informed.

Unfortunately, it is you who is wrong and needs to get informed. The dolphin catches around Japan are not regulated, as you state. Neither are whale catches. They catch a few hundred pilot whales and dolphins off the coast of Chiba every year, but very few people know about it. The numbers are recorded, but there is no limit. This is why the Japanese Dolphinariums have disassociated themselves with live caught dolphins from Taiji and other areas of Japan. As for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and the legalities of Japan's whale hunting there, they do exploit a loophole in the IWC agreement that many countries have been trying to close for many years. They also refuse to acknowledge that the southern oceans are an international whale sanctuary and continue to exploit the loophole even after the international court ruled their 'scientific research' to be total malarky.

Japan openly states that its whale and dolphin hunting are a cultural tradition. If this is so, why do most Japanese have no idea about it? And, why is it done in secrecy?

Still disgusting - no matter where whales are hunted I will always be opposed to it.

GoodlucktoyouToday 04:49 pm JSTat least not in the Antarctic whale reserve on the other side of the world. But still disgusting and illegal.

It's not illegal in Japanese waters or even in the Antarctic Sanctuary as IWC Article VIII exempts research whaling from recognizing sanctuaries.

Like I have been saying for YEARS JAPAN, forget the STUPID forays into the Antarctic, if you just caught a few whales off your coasts hardly ANYONE would care!

Though you still will probably have to force feed some of these 35whales to school kids to keep the freezers from overflowing with unwanted whale meat!!

Do the right thing just stop, too many reasons why its not a good idea, WWII is long over you have OTHER sources of protein!!

"We were able to grasp the distribution patterns (of the whales) in waters around Hokkaido in detail," an official of the group said.

Can't they just tag a few with GPS transmitters and track them that way.

I mean when people go to Africa and do research on large mammals, they don't kill them. They capture them, tag them and release them.

Where may one view the "research?"

Thunderbird2Nov. 3 06:49 pm JST Still disgusting - no matter where whales are hunted I will always be opposed to it.

That's ok. I find people who find hunting whales disgusting simply because they are hunting whales disgusting.

The maths in that article have me totally confused.

They mention 35 for September and October, but then 47 in June and July, plus another three, making 85 altogether around Hokkaido. So how does that fall short of their target of 77 then?

(Ah, the last three were off Aomori, but that still makes 82 in total... nuts.)

mukashiyokattaNov. 4 12:58 am JSTWhere may one view the "research?"

http://www.icrwhale.org/eng-index.html