Excellent and professional report. Better than most main-stream newscasts on this subject. Looking forward to more of these video reports. Thank you. This is undoubtably being seen by many thousands of people around the globe.

Well done in finding them only hope you are able to stick with them and stop further hunting. All the best from Bonnie Scotland.
Steven

Well done. Keep them on the run. Millions are with you in spirit.

In fact there is currently less than 750 tonnes of whale meat stored in Tokyo.

The total volume of whale meat stock held in various storage facilities around Japan is also less than 4,000 tonnes. Even at the end of October 2007, the volume was down to 3,798 tonnes (ministry figures), so now in mid-January there's probably only about 3,000 tonnes left.

Thanks for fighting the good fight! I love Japan but I find their taste for whaling to be unacceptable.

Hi Sarah and Irene,

Your assumption that Japanese people don't want whale meat is completely false, and you know it.

As october 2007, the whale meat stockpile was 3798 tonnes. It was 4962 tonnes in october 2006 and 4562 tonnes in october 2005. This only shows a decrease in the stockpile.

We also have to consider the supply of by-products from JARPA2 and JARPN2 programmes : 5332 tonnes in 2006 and 4005 tonnes in 2007.

We can thus assume that Japanese people consume more than 4000 tonnes of whale meat a year. And would consume the remaining stockpile in less than one year if Japanese programmes were to stop.

Basing your assumptions on the stockpiles only, ignoring the moves in and out, is just for creating a false image of the consumption of whale meat in Japan.

Oh yes, the sell of meat for public purposes (cheaper price for whaling communities + school lunches) is just around 800 tonnes out of the incoming 4-5000 tonnes.

you are heroes. i'm sure others have come here to say the same, but it bears repeating.

robert green
LA, CA USA The world

Dear David and Isanitori, ...YOUR assumption the Japanese people WANT whale meat is false. Are you suggesting that eating whale meat is the norm in Japan, as Irene has stated it's not? Supposing just for the sake of arguement we accept your figures to prove your notion that whale is favored by Japanese people.
OK so let's do a little math. You say that 4,000 metric tonnes of whale meat is consumed in Japan a year. So let's divide 127 million people into 4,000 metric tonnes, and you can see the results on a calculator as being about .07 pounds per person, ...per year. Or you could say, 7 pounds per year per 100 people. Or if we divide that by 52 weeks, we come to the calculation that one percent of the Japanese people eat about two ounces, or 60 grams a week of whale meat. Another way to look at it is, 1 out of 100 people eating a whale big mac once a month. These are your figures, not mine, ...care to check the math? And damn guys, how much rice do you think they eat a year compared to that, ...and don't you think it's a whole lot better for them than spilling all that blood and putting it in your schoolchildren's bowls? Oh gee, I keep forgetting, ...you guys are making all this money.

Keep up the good work. And as far as I am concern, get over the math, any whale meat is too much whale meat. STOP the hunt, now! Please.

David & Isantori,

You are the obvious people to answer my questions!

1. You both talk of the stockpiles of whale meat decreasing, what % of that decrease is accounted for by actual human consumption, ie. exclude warehouse spoilage; wastage during distrubution and at the point of sale, and purposes other than non-human consumption.

2. Could you please provide the ammount spent on marketing (creating demand), including the cost of giveaways, over the period that you refer to, ie. Oct 2005 till now.

I showed my Japanese neighbour Kimiko the beginning of the recently published pro-whaling video "Racist Australia and Japanese whaling ver.1.0". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8lvep0-Ii0 She looked shocked, and said that it was the work of a nationalist extremist!

Merci pour votre combat hélas peu egal quand on voit cette flotte de baleiniers! tenez bon, beaucoup vous soutiennent
take care
Monique

Congratulations, the film clip made it to SBS news. With some good coverage.

The beast is now behind you? Can you spare the time for a quick update?

I've been watching the webcam today. Arent you too far behind from to put your bodies between the whales and the whalers?

When I was a child in the 50's we lived in Japan and one of our favorite things to do was eat in local restaurants and sidewalk eateries. Never saw whale on the menu. When I revisited in '76 as an adult...never saw whale on the menus then.
This recent trend of whale meat as fancy food is all a marketing ploy for high profit...greed, NOT a traditional Japanese dish. whaling was introduced in modern times by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to feed a starving population after WWII. With great profit made by Americans selling whale oil. NOT A JAPANESE TRADITION!

My life of trying to "save whales" began in 1960, and has not yet ended. These Greenpeace videos are a tremendous boost to faith that we will eventually succeed. Congratulations, good wishes and love to you all Sidney

FYI Isanatori, you forgot to mention that a large portion of whale meat is used for pet food. Japan will always find a reason to exploit whales even if it is toxic.

Is Greenpeace chasing the Nisshin Maru out of the whaling grounds...or is the Nisshin Maru simply enabling Esperanza to use up her fuel at a faster rate so that whaling can resume sooner rather than later while whales are still concentrated in their summer feeding waters? If Greenpeace won't work in conjuction with Sea Shepherd, how about both groups agreeing to work in CONSECTUTIVE fashion, to lengthen the time that SOME group is on scene frustrating the whalers at any given time. Esperanza could go and refuel and resupply while Sea Shepherd does its thing, then Greenpeace could 'take the baton' while Sea Shepherd refuels. Otherwise, both groups expend their limited resources simultaneously and the whalers simply return to the killing grounds and achieve their awful goal. It is not cooperating with Sea Shepherd, it is just using one's resources in wisest fashion to save the maximum number of whales.

Responding to some comments...

Grateful Child,

Currently less than 10,000 tonnes of whale meat is made available to the Japanese market each year. As your own maths indicates, there simply isn't enough available for eating it to become "the norm" at the current time. Indeed, even when commercial whaling does resume it will be on a relatively small scale compared to the old days before Greenpeace existed, when people like Sidney Holt brought overexploitation of whale stocks to the IWC's attention.

The point I'd like to make is that it's an extreme generalization to make out that "no one wants whale meat". I understand that some people who dislike whales being used as food are concerned about the increasing size of the whale meat market in Japan, but that's no reason to issue unhelpful misleading statements.

biggles,

1) Such data isn't included in the figures produced by the ministry, they only cover stocks of various marine products (including whale) in storage.
2) I'm not aware of a source for that data either.

Bob Smith,

I sure wasn't pet food that I had for lunch yesterday (had to queue for several minutes before a seat became available too).

Eric, you're absolutely correct. That kind of cooperation would even reduce the carbon emissions of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd! For the sake of global warming, it would make sense for Greenpeace to practice what they and all of us preach.

SOOOO

Now our Oz Government needs to stand up for our country and for whales and get our men home and send the Japanese home too.