Cobbers

Mates on a mission

Japan’s bizarre whale experiments

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A review of the controversial scientific research conducted by Japan and its whalers has uncovered a list of ‘bizarre’ and useless experiments, including how to cross breed cows with whales.

Scientists have analysed 43 research papers produced by Japan over 18 years, finding most were useless or esoteric.

The scientific research included injecting minke whale sperm into cows eggs, and attempts to produce test-tube whale babies.

For years Japan has continued its whaling program under the guise of scientific research, to the disgust of anti-whaling nations such as Australia.

‘Rotten butter’ versus ‘stinging acid’

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butter.jpgActivists on board anti-whaling ship The Steve Irwin pelting the Nisshin Maru with rotten butter

The environmental group Sea Shepherd says it doubts its attack on a Japanese whaling ship off Antarctica yesterday injured anyone.

The group threw 24 litres of rotten butter onto the Nisshin Maru whaling ship.

Meanwhile, the Taipei Times reports:

“Militant environmentalists hurled stinging acid for more than an hour onto a Japanese whaling ship off Antarctica yesterday, hurting three crew members, Japanese government officials said.”

But the Sea Shepherd’s founder, Paul Watson, does not believe the claims.

‘We certainly didn’t injure anybody because we saw where every container hit — it was fully videotaped,’ he said.

‘The Japanese videotaped it and I’m sure that if we had have hit somebody they’d have it on their website, which they do not have.

‘My understanding is that the three injuries were three guys who got sick from the smell and just threw up.

‘So three guys chundering on the deck, really that’s the extent of it.’

Japan’s rotting whale meat mountain

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Japan’s whalers are going broke and have been forced to slash prices because no one wants to eat their growing mountain of whale meat.

The farcical truth of Japan’s whaling industry was exposed yesterday by Japanese media reports that the Institute for Cetacean Research is struggling to repay $37 million in government subsidies.

The report came as Japanese embassy officials made a stern protest in Canberra over the Federal Government’s release of shocking whaling photographs.

The ICR, responsible for Japan’s lethal ‘research operation’, is flooding Japan with cheap whale meat that it cannot sell, according to the reports in respected newspaper Asahi Shimbun.

Australia to monitor Japanese whaling

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Australia will send planes and a ship to conduct surveillance of Japanese whaling ships off Antarctica in a bid to build a potential legal case against whaling for scientific research, the government announced Wednesday.

The planes and ship would collect photographic and video evidence that would be used to decide if Australia will launch legal action to try to stop Japan’s whaling program, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.

Smith also said Australia will lead a group of anti-whaling nations in lodging a formal protest with the Japanese government within the next few days against Japan’s plans to harvest more than 1,000 whales, including 50 humpbacks, in its largest-ever scientific whale hunt.

‘We are dealing here with the slaughter of whales, not scientific research,’ Smith told a news conference. ‘That is our start point and our end point.’

An Airbus A-319 used by the Australian government’s scientific division in Antarctica would conduct surveillance flights over the Japanese fleet, which is due in its target area soon.”