In the weeks that led up to Japan beginning their whaling hunt and making headlines throughout the world, there were a few individuals and organizations that openly spoke out of the underlying truth - it was one hundred percent possible to study the whales without their wholesale slaughter. These people even made suggestions to Japan, all of which went (unsurprisingly) ignored.

The whaling talk has died down recently, but I’d just like to point out that throughout all the media coverage - they never once stated why Japan was whaling except much earlier; around the time Japan chose to make it’s announcement to slaughter a thousand whales. There were brief mentions here and there that there were fears most of the whale meat ended up being commercially marketed and sold - really?

Apparently the one thousand whales they aim to slaughter will be given to the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) which is the privately owned, non-profit organization dedicated to the study and research of whales and formed from the former Whale Research Institute which previously gathered it’s data from commercial whaling before it was outlawed in the 1980s. Yes, commercial whaling. Whaling for money, whaling for gain.

So, does the ICR actually need this many whales? They’ve been studying whales for decades, surely by now they should have a comprehensive database of whales? Nope. Honestly, how big is this organization? How do they aim to study these one thousand whales? It’s no secret that when they’re finished with the whales the meat does in fact get sold commercially to be consumed.

I personally do believe that there is some scientific study going on, but not much. I personally suspect that it’s a simple artifice (duh!) so they can feed their whale meat to the seafood-hungry public. If there were any real scientific study going on, the most intense would’ve been years ago.