[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.

[mnehring]

Thanks, the last post was from memory so I had the types wrong. Glad you kept it.

[mnehring]

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

Something else I pointed out recently was the percentage the Japanese take is actually less than what is allotted for Wolf culling in Alaska or Black Bear hunting in North Dakota.

[stuartcr]

Don’t forget Norway and Iceland.