Putting a stop to whaling in the southern ocean sanctury........... 
Our whale population in the Southern Ocean, is greatly depleting and after 40 years
of protection, it is not known if the whale species will ever recover to there original capacity. There are 73 known species of whale in the world, and not all whale populationsare endangered. For example the Killer Whales are not endangered at all. There is only one known species that has fully recovered to there original capacity and that is the East Pacific Grey Whale. the most endangered species of whale that is near extinction in the
world is the West Pacific grey whale. Japan and Norway are not the only countries that have a history of whaling. Britain, Russia, Germany and Denmark traditionally have been involved in whaling, but as a result of depleting whale populations that would not survive continuedhunting, there governments have terminated the practice. Japan state that the whaling is neccessaryfor scientific reason. There are other non-obscure methods for research on whales, but japan insists on using the obscure method to justify the killing of whales.
My point is, that it is not the fact that they hunt whales. The fact is that, the kill mother whales and pregnant whales. This is what is hindering the reproduction of the whale species. Identifying whether the sex of a whale in the majority of the species can only be done by checking there genitalia. When we kill cows or sheep for meat. We don't send a mother that is pregnant or a mother with calves or lambs to feed. This defeats the point, because reproduction is vital. So it should not be right when killing whales. Whales only produce one calf at a time. Twins can occur but it is very rare and highly unlikely that both will survive. Gestation isbetween 10 and 12 months, 
but for some species up to 16months. So as you can see it is vital that commercial whaling and whaling for scientific reasons has to stopped and other methods should be put in place to preserve these beautiful creatures.
Here are some links if you would like to read up a little more on the subject:
Greenpeace International - Whaling
Wikipedia - Gray Whale
Greenpeace - Norway:Commercial Whaling on the Rise
Greenpeace - Catching for Science is a hoax
BBC - Mixed fortunes for world's whales
Whale hunting photos
Greenpeace action photos of whaling in the southern ocean
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