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Non-lethal whale research

Whale fluke of Southern Right Whale.

The Great Whale Trail is a collaboration between Greenpeace and scientists working on humpback whales in the South Pacific. With financial support from Greenpeace, humpback whales were tagged by the Cook Islands Whale Research and Opération Cétacés (New Caledonia).

The whales were tracked via satellite as they migrated from breeding and calving areas in the tropical South Pacific to the feeding grounds of the Southern Ocean.

This project produced important information on the movements and migratory destinations of humpback whales from small, un-recovered populations off Rarotonga (Cook Islands) and New Caledonia.

Greenpeace is communicating this critical non-lethal scientific research to the wider public as part of their campaign against Japan's unnecessary lethal “research” in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

On their journey, the humpbacks, like hundreds of thousands of other whales, face a range of threats including ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, pollution and the impacts of climate change.

Every year, more than 300,000 whales and dolphins die from nets alone. The one place you might think they would be safe is a whale sanctuary like the Southern Ocean. Not so. Once in Antarctic waters they face the threat of whaling – the threat to whales that is the most easily remedied.

The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was meant to be a safe haven, but every year the Fisheries Agency of Japan send a fleet of whaling ships to kill in the name of science. For the third year running they aim to hunt down almost 1,000 minke whales.

This year, they also plan to kill 50 threatened humpback whales and 50 endangered fin whales.

All of these whales will die for so-called “scientific research” – research that has been labelled “needless” by the International Whaling Commission, which is also urging the Japanese government to stop.

In reality, the “research” is commercial whaling in disguise – and the whale meat actually ends up in supermarket shelves in Japan, even though few people eat it anymore. Commercial whaling is banned under IWC rules.

In contrast, the Great Whale Trail project is contributing to real scientific efforts without killing whales.

Recent Developments

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Greenpeace Canada executive director joins worldwide vigil to end Japanese whaling and the political persecution of the “Tokyo Two”

Greenpeace Canada’s executive director presented himself at the Japanese embassy in Ottawa this morning in hopes of being arrested as a co-defendant to two activists, dubbed the “Tokyo Two,” facing 10 years in prison for exposing the embezzlement of whale meat in Japan.

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Whaling fleet attempts to sneak out of port

Our activists marked the departure of Japan's whaling fleet from the port of Innoshima with banners declaring "Whaling on Trial" and another in Japanese outlining the whaling operation's multi-million dollar drain on Japan's taxpayers. The fleet had attempted to leave for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary unnoticed, by canceling their traditional high-profile departure ceremony in Shimonoseki. Instead, the factory ship Nisshin Maru left with no fanfare, waved off only by the crew's families and whaling officials.

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Reports: Japanese government gives in, slashes whale quotas

Good news for the whales comes in threes. And then you get a dollop of extra. Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's biggest newspapers, reports there will be a 20 percent reduction in the number of whales targeted in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary hunt this year -- the first reduction since 1987.

All Recent Campaign Developments