Posted by Elvis onboard the Esperanza

If I put on a t-shirt with the message "I am Elvis Presley" written on it - does that actually make me The King? We received some pictures of the whaling ships gathered in Shimonoseki, all with the word RESEARCH painted on the side. Why do they bother? Last year a review of the scientific results was made. It turned out that 18 years of lethal research on whales could not exclude the possibility of minke whales being immortal.

The first "scientific" whaling program (called JARPA) started in 1987. 18 years and 6 778 dead minke whales later, an expert workshop of scientists from the International Whaling Commission (including the Japanese scientists) met in Tokyo to review the scientific results.

One of the objectives with the research was to determine the mortality rate, "M". And here it comes:

…. the natural mortality rate was not determined - the confidence limits around estimates of M from JARPA data were so wide that M remains effectively unknown. These were so wide that even a value of M=0 was not excluded.

Catching whales for science is a hoax

Despite these results the second research program - JARPA II - was launched last year. If carried out as planned it will kill a much larger number of whales.

- Elvis