Japan’s whaling ship Nisshin Maru departed for sea from the port of Innoshima off the western side of the country.  The ship is headed for the Antarctica to hunt whales for research.  Personally I find this extremelly hard to swallow.  Japan plans to kill 850 Minke and 50 endangered Fin whales.  Two questions immediately come to mind; first off, with sophisticated monitoring and testing techniques, why does anyone need to kill whales in order to research them these days and secondly, do you really need 900 whales?  I’m no marine biologist, but what kind of research requires that many dead whales?

Greenpeace has been fighting whale hunting for as long as I know and they will continue to fight this travesty until whale hunting is stopped.  If you want to read more interesting facts regarding Japan’s corrupted whale hunting practices, visit the Greenpeace website and to hear what the local Japanese are saying, check out this blog posting.