On Apr 13, 7:44*am, hk wrote:
Japan annual whale catch 'halved'
By Roland Buerk
BBC News, Tokyo

Japan's whaling fleet has revealed how much anti-whaling activists
disrupted the annual hunt off Antarctica.

The ships have returned to port with just over half as many whales - 507
- as they had set out to catch.

Whalers said they were angry, and blamed what they described as "violent
interference" from the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Clashes at sea between Sea Shepherd and the whaling ships paralysed the
hunt for 31 days.

The last ship of the whaling fleet to return home sailed into Tokyo bay,
with much of the hunt's catch in her hold.

The whalers had set out late last year to kill nearly 1,000 whales in
the waters off Antarctica, but they caught 506 minke whales and one fin
whale.

It is the smallest catch for years.

One of the Sea Shepherd activists, Peter Bethune, is awaiting trial in
Japan after boarding a harpoon ship and trying to perform a citizen's
arrest on her captain.

Prosecutors have charged him with five crimes. If convicted he could go
to prison.

Commercial whaling has been banned worldwide since 1986 but Japan
justifies its annual hunt as scientific research.

Meat not used for study ends up in restaurants and shops.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ic/8616884.stm
--http://tinyurl.com/ykxp2ym

Why dont they put out Gun Ships? That'd only start up a lot of
crap...... Maybe a Submarine? They'd never see it coming...lol.