[mnehring]

when the Japanese whaler Shonan Maru No. 2 cut it in half and sank it on January 6th, 2010.

The video shows these idiots rammed the Japanese ship.

These are not, repeat, not Eco-terrorists. These are brave souls fighting the cause that Ronald Reagan took up years ago.

Bull Crap. This has nothing to do with endangered whales. These are pilot whales that are not endangered and whose population numbers in the millions. The Japanese are following the law and only allowed to take about a hundred of these a year.

[at bay]

“allowed to take a hundred a year”

Right. They’re going to send 4 ships for a hundred whales. Is getting informed that scary an issue?

[agere_contra]

mnehring, I think you were the one who originally posted the following data on FR. I found it so useful that I saved it. It's very helpful for putting whaling in context.

Data follows:

The Japanese kill roughly 900 Minke whales, maybe 100 Sei whales, 50 Bryde's whales, 10 Fin whales and three Sperm whales each year.

Minke whales are categorized as "Least Concern" and there are about 660,000 of them. The Japanese effectively harvest about 1 whale out of every 750 Minke whales.

Sei whales: even though they are listed as endangered, there are an estimated 54,000 of them. So the Japanese harvest 1 whale out of every 540.

Bryde's whales: Japanese take 50 a year, and there are 100,000 of them.

Fin Whales: Japanese take 10 a year, and there are about 100,000 Fin Whales.

Sperm Whales: The Japanese harvest 3 a year. The number of Sperm Whales is unknown but is thought to be in the hundreds of thousands.

In summary: the Japanese hunt and kill a tiny percentage of the world's Whales each year.

[at bay]

“Sea shepherd’s vessel rammed the whalers.”

Right. A little few ton racing vessel is going to ram a huge steel hulled vessel. Anyway, to anyone that has spent time at sea (years, not a Sunday boating afternoon) the video is indeed clear, and outrageous.

The whaling thugs not only sunk the small boat, they then tried to knock the survivors to their death!

What, a lotta you posters got mail order brides from the Rising Sun?