Another thing to look at is the actual voting history of the IWC. There are more landlocked nations (6) that vote against Japan than in favor (2). The Antis already do the vote buying game, and by the evidence, do it better. In fact, Japan is the only country that has ever requested the voting be done by secret ballot, eliminating the possibility (or greatly reducing it, at least) of vote buying.

As for sustainability, IWC sponsored SOWER cruises, a joint Japan/New Zealand/Australia research mission has completed 4 population estimates for Antarctic Minke. 3 of the 4 put the population at around 650,000-700,000. The most recent being 670,000 in 2008. The one anomoly, 2004, resulted in a count of 339,000. In the 4 years following, the IWC did extensive review and determined that the drastic difference was due to the fact that the 2004 count didn’t account for whales that lived beyond the pack ice, which they believe to be roughly half the population, which would make an approx 668,000 total count.

Independently, Dr Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University did a genetic diversity study and determined that the historic population level is around 650,000-700,000 with no appreciable booms or busts. He also estimated the ecological carrying capacity to be around 700,000, and the fertility rate and gestation period (approx. 50% of all females at any given time with a 16 month turnaround) leads to the conclusion that a hunt of around 2,000 a year would be sustainable with no major damage to the health of the population. This was the determination of the IWC Scientific Committee upon the first review of the 1986 Global Moratorium on whaling.

Dear Southern fried, Your brilliant assessment that the Japanese whaling fleet is not about whaling for profit is the most ludicrous statement I have ever heard. At a million bucks a whale, multiply by 1000….you can DAMN well bet it’s about profit. And to suggest that the direct action of the Sea Shepherds is not effective flys in the face of logic. How many people are thinking about the whale issue now as compared to say 5 years ago? How much press have they generated for the plight of the whales? Even if they only manage to save 5 whales a year…that’s five more whales that get to live out their natural existence. We treat pigs and cows in a slaughterhouse with more humane killing techniques then we do the whales.

Will the actions of the Sea Shepherds ever bring whaling to a complete halt? Maybe…maybe not. But sitting around doing nothing…or “playing the game” as you put it is not a viable solution for some people. Besides….they are playing the game…just not the way most people would play it. The most important thing is their intentions are beyond reproach. Paul Watson has dedicated his entire life to saving marine life….what the hell have you done besides sit here and spew out your critical tripe from your armchair vantage point. I would like to see the look on your face and feel the pulse in your veins after watching a pregnant whale slosh around in the water screaming for 25 minutes while it suffocates on its own blood….then tell me we should just sit by and “play the game”. If you saw someone treating a dog or a cat in the street in a similar manner…you would run over and restrain the person….any decent human being would. Whales are not fish…they think, they have family structures, they care for their young, they communicate with language across the globe, they choose mates….they are SENTIENT creatures….and whaling is murder.

“Perhaps the only way to even approach the answer would be to have observers on both ship who take note of incidents where a whale is physically blocked from harpooning”

Such an incident has never occurred.
So by this standard, SS has never had any effect whatsoever on the quota.
Is that your final answer?

Regarding pop estimates, one could just as easily say that Australian estimates are motivated by politics like the author suggests Japanese estimates are.
Nick Gales is not an objective scientist. He’s told many lies about ICR which show his bias. Such as the alleged claim that they are trying to interbreed cows and whales… an absurd claim to make. And an outright lie.
It might be forgivable from a journalist, but from a scientist in his own field? That’s deliberate, nasty, and not objective at all.

Palumbi similarly has a set bias. Take the paper he did, along with Endo, on Hg and PCB in meat. If you read the content of the paper it actually demonstrates that whale meat is perfectly healthy and extremely low in things like mercury.
However, the conclusion goes way off the beaten track and declares all whale meat to be suspect because of some anecdotal political excuse.
Similarly, he put up a video on youtube claiming that the population of whales has halved using the highly disputed and (practically thrown out) data from CPIII. It’s the only estimate he mentions, despite being the most scrutinized estimate.
That’s just downright irresponsible and shows a specific bias.

Fair dos, so it came from an anti-whaling NGO. No wonder the numbers are wrong, I wouldn’t expect anything less from anti-whalers.

Depending on what software you’re using, you should be able to set the blog to turn off comments on posts more than a few weeks old. In most cases, anyone showing up to the discussion later than that is probably either a spammer or a troll, although I suppose it’s possible they were just out on a whaling cruise.