Japan kills pregnant whales: Report

"We're collecting foetus samples"

Humane Society International says around 60% of the female whales killed by Japan in the Antarctic last summer were pregnant, according to a report in the SMH. A further three females were lactating when they were killed, their deaths presumably resulting in their calves starving to death.

Seeing as the Australian government is too afraid to engage in anything but a lot of shouting and fist-waving over this issue, no doubt for fear of real action jeopardising our important trade links with Japan, I think perhaps some sort of gory internet advertising campaign would be a good way of drawing attention to Australia's perspective there. Perhaps juxtaposing pictures whale watching tours in Australian waters with footage of Japan's bloody slaughter of whales. Pay for advertising space on popular, mainstream Japanese websites and it will probably make the news over there.

The government could claim to be protecting Australia's whale-watching industry. Any pro-whaling counter-campaign by the Japanese would surely fall flat in Australia. Their efforts at propaganda have so far been laughable: just think of the footage of Japanese whales sawing enormous chunks of flesh from a slaughtered whale on the bloody deck of a whaling ship, with another worker displaying a large sign, proclaiming "We're collecting tissue samples". You couldn't spoof that if you tried.

The reality of the situation is that it's only a relatively small band of hardcore nutbags in Japan who are fervently pro whale-slaughter, but they get a relatively large share of government attention and action, somewhat like the anti stem cell research brigade here. Moves to dissolve public apathy are more likely to result in action by the Japanese government than are periodic splutterings by our environment minister that aren't backed up by anything substantial.

The Japanese government isn't accountable to the Australian public, it's accountable to the Japanese public, so the most effective course of action would be to stimulate the Japanese public into holding its government accountable over its killing of whales for so-called 'research'.