Whales, Nagoya Blabla
The Conference on Biodiversity taking place in Nagoya Japan ends today while, in November, the Japanese whaling fleet will leave for Antarctica to catch 1,000 whales. Since 1986, when the moratorium on commercial whaling entered into force Japan has killed, in the name of science, 13,210 whales of which close to 10,000 were caught in Antarctica, a whale sanctuary since 1994. Considering the state of the Japanese whaling fleet, the entire Antarctic ecosystem is threatened by an oil spill.
Whales, Nagoya Blabla
The Conference on Biodiversity taking place in Nagoya Japan ends today while, in November, the Japanese whaling fleet will leave for Antarctica to catch 1,000 whales. Since 1986, when the moratorium on commercial whaling entered into force Japan has killed, in the name of science, 13,210 whales of which close to 10,000 were caught in Antarctica, a whale sanctuary since 1994. Considering the state of the Japanese whaling fleet, the entire Antarctic ecosystem is threatened by an oil spill.
The mother-ship, Nisshin Maru, ex Chikuzen Maru was launched in 1987. She was initially a stern trawler in American waters. She was quickly converted into a whaling factory ship. She works in the Antarctic Ocean without a double hull or reinforcement against ice and with only one engine. In February 2007, while the Nisshin Maru was sailing in the Ross Sea, a major explosion occurred aboard killing a crewmember and immobilising the vessel leaving her to drift for several days in the ice-infested Southern Seas. According to New Zealand authorities, the incident is one of the most serious to have occurred in the region. The Japanese did not immediately send out an SOS. The Nisshin Maru is also a little tanker with a capacity of holding 2,600 tons of fuel.
