Government Under Fire Over Trade In Endangered Whale Meat

The Conservative government is facing tough questions about why it is allowing meat from endangered whales to be shipped across Canada.

In February, it emerged that the federal government allowed an Icelandic company to transport meat from endangered fin whales across Canada on its way to market in Japan. Twelve shipping containers of the meat arrived in Halifax and, according to Greenpeace, were transported by train to ports in British Columbia.

At the time, Environment Canada told the Vancouver Sun that Canada was obligated to allow the transport of the meat despite the fact that fin whales have been given the highest level of protection under the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which Canada has signed. Atlantic Fin whales are also of "special concern" under Canada's Species at Risk Act.

Whale-War Fugitive: Q. & A. with Paul Watson

Fans of Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars,” a reality show that documents members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society battling Japanese whalers every winter in the Southern Ocean, will have to wait several months longer than usual for the show’s new season to première. The airdate for “Whale Wars,” usually slated for June, has been pushed back, possibly to the fall, or even to 2014. In the past year, Sea Shepherd has become mired in litigation, diplomatic pressure, I.R.S. audits, and Interpol notices, and Animal Planet decided that, instead of placing its own crew on Sea Shepherd ships, it would stitch together episodes from footage that the activists shot of themselves. This may be a first for a reality show—certainly one this popular—but if Animal Planet is able to pull together a season that has integrity, the sixth installment of “Whale Wars” promises to be the show’s most entertaining and provocative. Nine ships went head-to-head in the Southern Ocean, and Sea Shepherd began its campaign against the Japanese fleet with a few surprises—among them the secret whereabouts of its founder, Paul Watson, who evaded house arrest in Germany, and joined the campaign as a fugitive. In January, I was able to speak with Watson via Skype. He was on one of the Sea Shepherd vessels, the Steve Irwin. Behind him, on a wall, there was a traditional garment from Fiji, an Iroquois flag, and a Templar sword. He was in good spirits. For the first time, Sea Shepherd was in position before the Japanese fleet, and Watson was confident that its growing navy could prevent the whaling vessels from killing even one whale.

Japan Whale Hunt Funded By Tsunami Disaster Budget

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan is spending 2.3 billion yen ($29 million) from its supplementary budget for tsunami reconstruction to fund the country's annual whaling hunt in the Antarctic Ocean, a fisheries official confirmed Thursday.

Tatsuya Nakaoku, a Fisheries Agency official in charge of whaling, defended the move, saying the funding helps support Japan's whaling industry as a whole, including some whaling towns along the devastated northeastern coast. One ship on the hunt is based in Ishinomaki, a town hit badly by the March 11 tsunami, he said.

The budget request was made to beef up security and maintain the "stable operation" of Japan's research whaling, he said, which has faced increasingly aggressive interference from boats with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Conservationist group Greepeace blasted the funding move, claiming it was siphoning money away from disaster victims.