Japan Targets Humpback Whales
They're the most easily recognized of the great whales. Once hunted almost to ___(1)___, humpbacks have been protected for 40 years. Now Japanese whalers have set out to kill 50 of them in an expedition which could see a thousand ___(2)___ dead in 6 months, they say, for ___(3)___ purposes.
"There is a loophole in the ___(4)___ on commercial whaling that lets Japan hunt for scientific reasons. But let's be honest, this is not scientific whaling. You can do scientific research on whales without ___(5)___ them. The meat from these whales ends up in supermarkets in Japan. This is ___(6)___ whaling by another name."
The whaling fleet was filmed earlier on its expedition to the Antarctic, where it ___(7)___ mainly the smaller Miki whales. Now it plans to catch 900 of them in the South Pacific. But fisheries ministers in Japan now say even larger whales, including ___(8)___ and fins, now have large enough populations to sustain hunting. Fisheries ministers say no one knows for sure how many of them there really are, but even in Japan many feel it's the whaling ___(9)___ that should be allowed to die and the whales allowed to ___(10)___.