The commission's new chairman said the IWC should now question its role as the conference on the Portuguese island of Madeira wrapped up a day early with delegates agreeing only to extend negotiations on whaling for another year.
The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) said it "deeply laments the fact that not a single of the important whaling topics was resolved".
The 61st annual meeting of the IWC has seen 85 member countries come together in Madeira, Portugal, who unanimously decided yesterday that climate change is a key threat to the world's whales.
They have set forward a resolution urging governments to commit to reducing emissions at the UN Climate meeting in Copenhagen at the end of the year in order to address this issue.
Surely this conference was about protecting whales from commercial slaughter, not protecting themselves and whales from climate change!
"However, members did not take action that would stop commercial whaling outside of IWC regulation, which is a fundamental problem that the IWC must address, and which continues today." So there will be no further action to stop commercial whaling? The IWC has lost it's original aims - to protect whales from commercial killings!
Despite Environment Minister’s rhetoric about vowing to “stamp out scientific whaling”, there is not such thing as Japan's "scientific whaling".
Our "anti-whaling" Government has to take some of the blame for the proliferation of the whale meat trade! Before being elected, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd made many promises about "tough" action against Japan's illegal whale killers and stopping their slaughter, but nothing has happened!
All their procrastinations and rhetoric has meant that Japan has been able to successfully continue their thinly disguised commercial whaling!
The only "tough" action from our Government has been against the crew of the Steve Irwin when Japan got the AFP to raid their ship! Our so-called "anti-whaling" nation has actually encouraged the re-commencement of commercial whaling.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith indicated Australia was leaving open the option of taking legal action against Japan on whaling through the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. However, this action is not optional but a pre-election promise to stop illegal whaling! Fulfilling promises should not be "optional" unless there is a drastic change in events, but there hasn't been.
While our leaders procrastinate and make excuses, Japan will continue to flout international and domestic laws and continue their commercial whaling. They are not only violating CITES and Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary but are completely flouting the Antarctic Treaty that protects marine wildlife and environment and the permit system to even enter the territory!
By allowing Japan to continue their successful commercial whaling, other nations such as Norway and Iceland have followed. When are we going to take action as an “anti-whaling” nation?
Operation Waltzing Matilda is the 6th Sea Shepherd campaign to defend the whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary from Japanese poachers.
“This is a research project,” said Captain Paul Watson. “We’ve decided to demonstrate our solidarity with the Japanese, Australian, and New Zealand Research projects. Our primary objective is to research non-lethal means for defending whales. Of course this may include research into Japanese ship’s hull plate thickness, vessel stress tests, and paint chip analysis, as well as observation of whaler behavior in response to olfactory stimulation.”
Maybe there are deep-seated resentments due to the success of Sea Shepherd, lonely activists against the mighty economic powers of Japan, or maybe there are guilt issues regarding their affront to people's acceptance of violence towards animals. No doubt, Sea Shepherd and Captain Paul Watson upset the status quo!
There is more to whale killing than the desire for the meat and profits. It's about human lust to "manage" the oceans away from the Cetacean species who know how to live in harmony with their environment - not like our own species that are creating sewers and killing fields out of the oceans.
#10;<p><a href=" https:=""> Please sign the PETITION to help save whales
Comments
Lady Mauve (not verified)
Sat, 2009-06-27 19:39
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Whaling Conference
Tigerquoll
Mon, 2009-06-29 14:34
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Scientific Whaling - no different to Ishii's depraved Unit 731
So, we think taking over half an hour for a whale to die from explosive internal harpooning is inhumane?
We think 'scientific' whale research is cruel and should be stopped, but not sure how?
Japan's claim that it is conducting 'scientific' whaling is as scientific as Japanese Unit 731 and its 'scientific' human experiments during World War II, commanded under microbiologist Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Try this...
Those engaged in 'scientific' whaling should be publicly labelled as Unit 731 'Nana-san-ichi butai' in the Japanese media!!
This would be one damn nasty way to stop the whaling. How so? Read below extracts.
Activities of Unit 731:
A special project code-named Maruta used human beings for experiments. Test subjects were gathered from the surrounding population and were sometimes referred to euphemistically as "logs" (??, maruta?).[11] This term originated as a joke on the part of the staff due to the fact that the official cover story for the facility given to the local authorities was that it was a lumber mill. [SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-439776/Doctors-Depravity.html]
Vivisection
* Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.
* Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results. The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.
* Vivisections were also performed on pregnant women, sometimes impregnated by doctors, and the fetus removed.
* Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.
* Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.
* Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.
* Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines.
* Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.
* In 2007, Doctor Ken Yuasa testified to the Japan Times that, "I was afraid during my first vivisection, but the second time around, it was much easier. By the third time, I was willing to do it." He believes at least 1,000 persons, including surgeons, were involved in vivisections over mainland China.
Weapons testing:
* Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in different positions.
* Flame throwers were tested on humans.
* Humans were tied to stakes and used as targets to test germ-releasing bombs, chemical weapons and explosive bombs.
Germ warfare attacks:
* Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects.
* To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied.
* Prisoners were infested with fleas in order to acquire large quantities of disease-carrying fleas for the purposes of studying the viability of germ warfare.
* Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.
* Tularemia was tested on Chinese civilians.
Unit 731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644, Unit 100, et cetera) were actively involved not only in research and development, but also in experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both civilian and military) throughout World War II. Plague-infested fleas, bred in the laboratories of Unit 731 and Unit 1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes upon Chinese cities, coastal Ningbo in 1940, and Changde, Hunan Province, in 1941. This military aerial spraying killed thousands of people with bubonic plague epidemics.
Other 'scientific' experiments:
Prisoners were subjected to other experiments such as:
* being hung upside down to see how long it would take for them to choke to death.
* having air injected into their arteries to determine the time until the onset of embolism.
* having horse urine injected into their kidneys.
* being deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death.
* being placed into high-pressure chambers until death.
* being exposed to extreme temperatures and developing frostbite to determine how long humans could survive with such an affliction, and to determine the effects of rotting and gangrene on human flesh.
* having experiments performed upon prisoners to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival.
* being placed into centrifuges and spun until dead.
* having animal blood injected and the effects studied.
* being exposed to lethal doses of x-ray radiation.
* having various chemical weapons tested on prisoners inside gas chambers.
* being injected with sea water to determine if it could be a substitute for saline.
* being buried alive. (This practice included infants.)
[SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731]
nimby
Wed, 2009-07-01 10:29
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A music award but nothing for the whales!
Vivienne (not verified)
Thu, 2009-10-22 15:40
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Japanese whalers in Australian waters should be arrested!
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