JAPAN CLAIMS THE WHALES ARE KILLED HUMANELY AND QUICKLY. ARE THEY NOT?

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(7) JAPAN CLAIMS THE WHALES ARE KILLED HUMANELY AND QUICKLY. ARE THEY NOT?

Experience has shown that it is very difficult to kill a whale at sea humanely; that is, by causing minimum pain or instantaneous death.

Whales are killed at sea, using explosive harpoons, which puncture the skin of a whale and then explode inside its body. For the smaller Minke whales, it is true some experience deaths within 5minutes, but this is rare and often pure luck. Unfortunately, this is not the case for ALL whales though. Pending their size, it can take up to 1 hr for the animal to finally succumb to death.

http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/what_are_the_issues/whaling/

It has been documented that of all whales hunted by the Japanese in Antarctica, 60 percent of them do not die instantaneously.

After the whale is pulled towards the vessel it is secured. If it is still alive, it will need to be harpooned again or shot with a high powered rifle to kill it.

It may take more than one hour to die, in what appears to be extreme pain.

Harpooned whales may escape capture, because the harpoon failed to stick, pulled out, or because the line broke. These whales may suffer over several hours or days, before dying of their injuries.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentPage.aspx?id=43890

In March 2003, Whalewatch, an umbrella group of 140 conservation and animal welfare groups from 55 countries published a report, "Troubled Waters", whose main conclusion was that whales cannot be guaranteed to be killed humanely and that all whaling should be stopped. They quoted figures that said 20% of Norwegian and 60% of Japanese-killed whales failed to die as soon as they had been harpooned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Method_of_killing

Please watch this video of the recent Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. The footage was shot by the Australian Customs chartered ship Oceanic Viking.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080207-whaling-video-ap.html



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