Hiroshi Hatanaka: Activists prolong death for whales

Greenpeace tells the world that you can find out all you need through whale research that doesn't involve killing the animal.

While our scientific papers to the IWC have demonstrated the falsity of that claim, we know there is still important knowledge to be gained from non-lethal research.

Sighting surveys add to the gathering of information for the proper management of whale resources.

So why, then, is Greenpeace using their Zodiac inflatables to prevent us from conducting our non-lethal program?

Has it got to the point where Greenpeace has now abandoned all science?

In the meantime, statistics from the Antarctic fleet have shown that the average time it takes to dispatch a whale has increased as a direct result of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd's activities.

An analysis of statistics shows that the time to death increases dramatically when Greenpeace activists get between the harpoon and the whale.

Without Greenpeace, 52 per cent of the whales die instantly, while the remainder is rendered in under two minutes.

When Greenpeace activists put themselves between the harpoon and the whale, the time to death of the animal has sometimes surpassed half an hour, and more precisely in the case of one whale, 35min 10secs from the strike of the first harpoon to confirmation of death.

Whey they get in front of the catcher boats, the harpoon can hit a less than optimum part of the whale's body.

In the above case, the harpoon detached and we had an injured whale swimming around.

So the time necessary to shoot additional harpoons increases as a consequence of Greenpeace presence. Greenpeace is not saving any whales, they are only condemning them to a slow death.

If the harpooner does not get the optimum shot, it takes a certain amount of time to reload the harpoon, because of the explosive nature of the device and the fact it has a grenade in its tip.

The grenade explodes inside the whale normally killing it instantly.

Our harpooners are very professional, and even Greenpeace has admitted on its website the Japanese harpooners are very good shots.

The point is that Greenpeace knows that if they harass the catcher boats they can get the bloody footage required for their PR campaign.

* Hiroshi Hatanaka is Director General of the Institute of Cetacean Research, which conducts Japan's whaling programme.