Are Japanese Whalers the Only "Criminals"?

Whale conservationists are trying to disrupt "criminal" Japanese whaling operations in the Southern Ocean.

The Sea Shepherd Society's Paul Watson rejects calls for both sides to show restraint, saying "You don't use restraint against criminals."

The Japanese whalers will kill more than 1,000 minke whales illegally in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary. The whalers also kill Bryde's, sei, and sperm whales - all endangered species - in the North Pacific.

40 percent of whales taken are killed instantly. Most of the others are killed with a second harpoon or even rifle fire and suffer extreme pain for about an hour before dying. Many whales are "struck and lost", escaping after the first harpoon but suffering possibly fatal injuries. Naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough says there is "hard scientific evidence that there is no humane way to kill a whale at sea".

A whale's life is difficult enough without having to evade hunters. They face a number of threats, including climate change, ozone depletion, habitat loss and degradation, chemical, nutrient, and hard waste pollution, fisheries, collisions with ships, capture for aquariums, and harassment by whale watching boats.

Climate change will alter the oceans' currents and, therefore, whales' food supply. Depletion of the ozone layer has allowed more ultraviolet radiation to reach the surface of the ocean, where it has killed krill, the major food of baleen whales and the basis of the ocean's food chain.

Habitat is degraded and destroyed by several kinds of pollution. Toxic chemicals, including spilled and illegally dumped oil, affect whales' health and food supply; noise pollution, including seismic tests and military sonar, causes health problems and even death as well as limiting whales' ability to communicate; hard waste pollution, including plastics and discarded fish nets, is now found in all of world's oceans; and whales die as part of the bycatch of the world's extensive and intensive fisheries.