Australia Condemns Whaling

Last week, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took a firm stance against Japanese whaling programs, threatening to pursue international legal action against the nation’s government. While commercial whaling is internationally banned, whale hunts are permitted for scientific research purposes, and extra meat is then sold for consumption. Rudd told Australia’s Fairfax Radio Network that researchers from Australia and New Zealand will challenge the research exception by sending a team of scientists to the Arctic to prove that whales can be studied without being killed. Japanese whaling season begins this month, and anti-whaling activists from the Sea Shepherd Conversation Society have already set sail for the Arctic.