Research in Japanese means "Sushi"

In November of last year, the Japanese government embarked on a whale research study, which would entail capturing nearly 1000 whales.

Read the BBC perspective here.

A 2004 estimate by the International Whaling Committee put the Minke whale population to be on the order of 184,000, according to Wikipedia (thus needs to be taken with a grain of salt.)

In 2005, the IWC estimated the population to be around 760,000. This I also got from Wikipedia.

The Minke whale is categorized by the The World Conservation Network (aka, the IUCN) as "nearly threatened". I've borrowed this from their website:
"NEAR THREATENED (NT)
A taxon is Near Threatened when it has been evaluated against the criteria but does not qualify for Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable now, but is close to qualifying for or is likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future."

Doesn't say much, actually, except that an orange is an orange because it isn't (yet) an apple nor is it a banana (although a change is possible). However, if a network of scientists from around the world tell me that an animal species is dwindling at an even subtly alarming rate, I would tend to want to pay attention to what they say.

Now that we've gotten through all this background, we should probably wonder whether capturing (and thus probably killing) nearly 1000 whales is necessary for research. A handful wouldn't do? Since I am merely an arm-chair cetacean biologist (in the same vein that I call myself an arm-chair oncologist, arm-chair Ku Klux Klansman, and arm-chair Peruvian), I can't really be one to judge.

Probably neither can this guy....

What's really cool is that last month, the Japanese government decided to drop plans for humpback whale slaughtering for commercial purposes... er, research.

"The U.S. asked Japan to freeze planned humpback hunts" for one to two years to support its efforts as chair of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said."

Read about it here.

My favorite part of the article, in which the Japanese government comments on Australia's opposition to the whaling issue:

"This seems to be a problem of differences in national sentiment between Japanese and Australian culture," Komura told reporters. "It's not a matter that can be solved by appealing to one another through logic."

Let's consider this again... Japan wants to hunt whales in the name of science but... international opposition to the whaling can simply be chalked up to cultural differences and national sentiment. This matter of SCIENCE can't be solved through LOGIC.

Oh, now I understand....