David @ Tokyo

Australians for Animals International is the latest in a string of crafty anti-whaling groups in Australia urging their government to take Japan to an International Court over Japan's scientific whaling programmes, carried out under Article VIII of the ICRW.

For some amusement, let's see what we find at Australians from Animals' website:

Humpback populations have never recovered from the mindless slaughter which took place last century.

Indeed, their numbers aren't what they used to be but it's only honest to note that even by Australia standards the Humpback population is "booming" at 10% per annum :-)

Whales died in horrible agony...

Indeed, back in those days, they did. These days (after a century of technological advances) killing methods can ensure that the majority of whales die the instant they are struck by the harpoons.

...drowning in their blood, never losing consciousness until death

Drowning in their blood? One wonders how the hell they ever survived in the water?! I'd put money on it that the harpoons killed them before they "drowned in their blood". I'd also wager that most animals hunted in the wild rarely lose consciousness until they are dead...

Old time whalers tell the stories of the immense cruelty involved and they speak with sorrow about how the Japanese whaling ships almost wiped out the Humpbacks back in the 60’s.

Oh, and of course the Australian's never played a hand in the whale hunting!
Hmm, let's see... back in the 60's...

      Australia   Japan
1960:  0           282
 61:  1481        284
 62:  720         20
 63:  87          20
 64:  0           1
 65:  0           43
 66:  0           0
 67:  0           0
 68:  0           0
 69:  0           0
      ------------------
Total:2228        650

Australia is indisputably the reckless culprit here, where as the Japanese takes were clearly at a much more responsible level. An annual take of the magnitude of Australia in the early 1960's was far beyond what the Japanese are planning to take for their research programmes (and it clearly wasn't sustainable either).

But enough amusing ourselves with the misinformation of yet another NGO - back to the article.

This is just yet another money grubbing grandstand from a donation seeking group.

We've already seen the Australians themselves admitting that such a case wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on.

We've seen the Australian government reject applications for legal action against Japan from other groups.

We've also seen Australian Labor come out and grandstand on the same issue too.

Australians for Animals are clearly just a little bit slow - they should have come out with this when the issue was big new back in June. They won't pull so many donations at this, the non-business end of the year.

Says Greens Senator Bob Brown:

"Is Mr Howard pulling his punches on whales so he can get a free trade agreement?"

I'd ask Mr. Brown if he is grandstanding on the issue because he knows the government will never take the issue to court as it would be a guaranteed failure (and huge political embarassment domestically and internationally), and is trying to score points out of it because of the lack of knowledge of whaling issues amongst the general Australia.

"That's pretty low politics. In public, it's for saving whales. In private, it's for Japanese whaling. You can't be neutral, or refuse to take action that's available, without you become complicit."

If Senator Brown is such a man of integrity I'd fully expect him to come out and propose Australia's immediate withdrawal from the ICRW, as it is the international treaty that legitimises scientific whaling operations around the world.