09 January 2008 - International
— Earlier this week, our crew on the Esperanza
awoke to find themselves surrounded by at
least 50 humpback
whales feeding in the Southern Ocean Whale
Sanctuary. Leandra, our on-board scientist,
captured some rare and unique underwater
sounds as part of our ongoing research programme.
You don't need to fire
an exploding harpoon into a whale and kill
it in order to study it. While we deploy
hydrophones and take photographs as our
Great Whale Trail expedition continues,
we are proving that the scientific excuse
for killing whales is a sham and we are
demanding that the Japanese government stop
the whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. This
week we added research into whale song to
the satellite tracking, skin biopsy, and
photo identification work in which we've
been collaborating with scientists from
the International Fund for Animal Welfare,
Cook Islands Whale Research, and Opération
Cétacés (New Caledonia).
Humpback whales are
the only whales that truly "sing",
and it is only the males that do it, usually
when they are in their tropical breeding
grounds. But sometimes songs are heard while
the whales are migrating and very occasionally
when they are feeding. So this recording
of a humpback singing in the Southern Ocean
is very valuable for research on humpback
behaviour. Nobody really knows why they
sing but one of the most popular scientific
theories is that the males use it to show
off to the females -- in much the same way
peacocks have elaborate tails in order to
try and attract a potential mate.
While Esperanza's crew
documented this baleen banquet for science,
spectators from around in the world were
able to take part in a virtual whale watching
trip via the newly updated live web cam
on the ship, which provided a fantastic
view from the top of the ship's mast.
Greenpeace's collaboration
with scientists in the South Pacific to
track humpbacks via satellite has already
yielded results which scientists have called
"amazing." In stark contrast,
the Japanese Fisheries Agency’s Research
Programme has been dismissed by the International
Whaling Commission as having very little
scientific value. It is, essentially, a
hoax -- with the results of the research
turning up on supermarket shelves, restaurant
menus and even dog food rather than in scientific
journals.
On board, the BBC's
Jonah Fisher wrote in his diary:
A month ago the Japanese
fleet was still planning to kill 50 humpbacks
as part of their scientifically licensed
whaling programme. If they had been in the
same spot as the Greenpeace ship today,
they could probably have got their quota
in one go. In every direction there were
humpbacks surfacing - and with their curious
nature it would have made an easy day for
the harpoonist.
The Japanese whaling
fleet is currently in the Southern Ocean
to slaughter up to 935 minke whales and
50 endangered fin whales. While the crew
of the Esperanza will defend the whales
from the harpoons they will also continue
to show how to carry out real whale science
demonstrating that the only way a scientist
shoots a whale is with a camera.
On December 22nd, the
Japanese government backed down in the face
of pressure from Greenpeace supporters,
whale advocates, and conservation-minded
governments, announcing that they would
not hunt humpbacks this season.
But we have heard that
plans are being made to build a brand new
whaling factory ship -- a larger ship than
the Nisshin Maru, one capable of processing
many more whales. It will be built at a
cost of billions of yen in Japanese taxpayers
money. Such a ship would be built specifically
to kill and process thousands of whales,
including humpbacks in the future. Japanese
tax payers must be wondering why they are
paying scandalous sums of money for a sham
science programme which results in tonnes
of whale meat being stockpiled. Surely there
are better things to spend that money on.
