Make This The Last Whaling Season

The Japanese Government whaling fleet has returned to Japan. The whaling factory vessel, Nisshin Maru, disabled for nine days by fire, will be repaired. This must be the last time the fleet threatens both the whales and the pristine Antarctic environment.

Take Action>> Tell President Bush to lead the way in defending the whales.

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Dear President Bush,

The Japanese Government whaling fleet has returned to Tokyo. The whaling factory vessel, Nisshin Maru, disabled for nine days by fire, will be repaired. This must be the last time the fleet threatens both the whales and the pristine Antarctic environment.

This May the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will be meeting on US soil for the first time in 18 years, when it convenes in Anchorage, Alaska. The meeting marks a vital opportunity for your Administration to lead the international community and help bring commercial whaling to a close.

In 1982, in response to decades of over-hunting of whale populations, the IWC voted for an indefinite global moratorium on commercial whaling. Yet 25 years later commercial whaling continues and is even increasing. Since the moratorium entered into force in 1986, more than 25,000 whales have been killed by the commercial whaling industry.  Of these, 9,220 whales were killed under the guise of 'scientific research' by the Fisheries Agency of Japan's 'scientific' whaling fleet, including nearly 8000 whales inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. A growing number of whales are also being killed commercially by Norway and Iceland.

It was American army General Douglas MacArthur who gave special permission for the conversion of the Japanese navy after World War II into an industrial whaling fleet that went whaling in the Antarctic.  But times have changed. Japan has changed.  Whaling does not belong in the 21st Century.  Just as the U.S. Government acted in the late 1940s to authorize this fleet, so it must act today to make sure that it never returns to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

For more than three decades, the United States led international efforts to protect the world's whales from commercial whaling. But the U.S. government seems to have forgotten about the whales and the huge amount of support that there is for whale conservation among the American public.

Please lead the way in defending the whales so that whale hunting for commercial purposes under whatever guise is stopped, peace returns to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and the government of the United States can stand up with its citizens for the whales and the oceans that give them life.

"Sincerely," and your name and contact information will be added to the end of the letter.

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Make This The Last Whaling Season

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