Lethal whale sampling "unjustified" 

A New Zealand scientist says he is worried about a decline in Humpback whale numbers if Japan's plans to target the endangered whales next year goes ahead.  

Scott Baker from the University of Auckland has written a report for the International Fund for Animal Welfare on Japan's whaling programme.

He says an anti-whaling country like New Zealand or Australia should take Japan to court for misleading the world over its scientific whaling programme.  But the government looked into that and found it too risky.  If New Zealand lost, it would set a dangerous moral precedent for Japan.

In science speak its "lethal sampling" - the killing of whales so that Japanese scientists can check their stomach contents to learn about what they eat.

Baker says the programme is unjustified and the proposal to target Humpback whales poses a threat to groups still recovering from commercial whaling.

"It's pretty clear that the scientific programme and its expansion is just a thinly veiled commercial plot.  I mean there's a profit of probably about US$38 million a year that has gone to fund the research which goes into promote more killing," he says.

The report claims the data collected by Japan is seriously flawed and exaggerates whale populations.

Last year Japan doubled its whale take under its scientific whaling programme.

Baker says the move could endanger whale-watching industries in smaller Pacific countries. 

He says that even though Humpback numbers are recovering, they are still not sustainable, and that the Minke whale population is likely to have been exaggerated by Japanese scientists.

They claim the planet has a population of 750,000 minke whales, but Baker says it is more likely to be a third of that.

"Japan is very unwilling to accept these lowering numbers even though it is their own evidence that points to it."

The International Fund for Animal Welfare says the report is timely as there is a risk pro-whaling nations may get a majority at the International Whaling Commission next month.