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WDCS On The Whale Wars: Taking The Battle Beyond The Antarctic

While WDCS does not condone destruction of property, nor accept tactics that endanger lives, we empathize with the publics anger and frustration at the continued killing of whales decades after a ban was put in place to save these magnificent animals from industrial-scale slaughter.

WDCS therefore welcomes the increased discussion of commercial whaling that the broadcast of Animal Planets Whale Wars series will inevitably generate in the USA and beyond.

However, whaling is not just limited to the southern hemisphere and Japans so-called scientific whaling in Antarctica. Commercial whaling is conducted in the northern hemisphere too, including by Japan. Whalers from Japan, Norway and Iceland kill hundreds of minke, sperm, Brydes and sei whales in the North Pacific and North Atlantic every year and other countries are interested in joining them.

WDCS fears that the whaling ban - one of the most important and enlightened conservation decisions of the 20th Century - is at risk everywhere today. Ironically the biggest threat comes not from Japan or the other whaling nations, but from the USA and other governments that are on the brink of doing a cheap deal with Japan. While they hope that the negotiations currently taking place behind closed door might lead to a phase-out of whaling in Antarctica, we fear that they will legitimise whale hunting elsewhere.

So, while we believe it is important to focus attention on the single biggest whale hunt, WDCS will do our utmost to ensure that heightening the profile of the Antarctic hunt today does not come at the cost of all whales tomorrow. We won’t take to the oceans in protest, but we will redouble our work at the International Whaling Commission - where decisions are made - to convince governments that all whaling is inhumane, unsustainable, impossible to regulate and unnecessary, and should be consigned to the history books.

WDCS is supporting full protection for Antarcticas Ross Sea, which has been called the "jewel of the Southern Ocean" and "the largest remaining, minimally-changed ecosystem on Earth". Plundered by whalers who removed its blue whales, the Ross Sea yet supports populations of orcas, minke, sei, sperm, Arnoux’s beaked and southern bottlenose whales and hourglass dolphins. There are also hundreds of thousands of penguins, seabirds and seals. Find out more about WDCSs Global Marine Protected Areas Campaign and make your voice heard by signing the Global MPA Petition.

Global Marine Protected Areas Campaign

Global Marine Protected Areas Petition

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