Ochil and South Perthshire MP Gordon Banks adopts a humpback whale under threat from Japanese harpoon

November 2007

Ochil and South Perthshire MP Gordon Banks has adopted a humpback whale to show his opposition to Japanese whaling.

Mr Banks accepted an invitation from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), to adopt a humpback whale to demonstrate his support for IFAW’s efforts to protect this vulnerable species, now being targeted by Japan’s whaling fleet in an internationally recognised whale sanctuary.

The threatened humpback has been protected from whaling for more than four decades after being driven to near extinction by commercial whaling during the last century. Despite this, Japan has now added 50 humpbacks to its target list as it sails towards the Southern Ocean Sanctuary in Antarctica to hunt the humpbacks plus almost 1,000 other whales.

Japan claims its expanding annual whale hunts are for “scientific” purposes, but little science has been produced and the whale meat is put on sale in restaurants and supermarkets.

Robbie Marsland, Director of IFAW UK, said: “IFAW is very grateful to Gordon Banks for showing their support for the whales. Whaling is inherently cruel – there is simply no humane way to kill a whale.

“Our scientists have analysed footage of Japanese whaling which shows whales taking over half an hour to die a very slow and agonising death. We urge the UK Government and other anti-whaling nations to take diplomatic action at the highest levels to protect whales.”

Mr Banks said: “I am very happy to support IFAW’s campaign to protect the whales by adopting.. Whaling is cruel and unnecessary.”
New findings from international legal experts in recent weeks have challenged Japan’s claim that its expanding whaling programme is legal under international law. Legal analyses by international panels of independent legal experts convened in Paris and London have found Japan’s expanding whaling operations to be in violation of International Whaling Commission (IWC) regulations and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Notes to Editors:

A global moratorium on commercial whaling was adopted by the IWC in 1986. Japan’s self-allocated “scientific” whaling quota for 2007/8 includes more than 1,400 whales of seven different species: Antarctic minke, common minke, fin, sei, Brydes, sperm and humpback whales from the North Pacific and the waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica, established by the IWC in 1994.