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听力文稿 ( Transcript )
Japanese fishing fleets have once again begun hunting humpback whales
Over the hunting of humpback whales in South Pacific, D said it wasn’t convinced the Japanese mission was really necessary for scientific research. The whaling fleet set sail today. Environmental campaigners are planning to intercept this. Commercial whaling has been banned for 21 years. So the Japanese say this is a research expedition. But it’s a research expedition comprised of three whaling ships and a vast factory ship, a research expedition which is expected to kill around 1000 whales. It is a research expedition with a clear motive. The scientific research we carry out will pave the way to overturning the moratorium on commercial whaling and to better utilize whale resources. Scientific research into whaling is imperative for Japan. To reinforce the point, the word research has been painted on the side of the factory ship. It’s very unusual to have a research being done on an endangered species that involves killing them in large numbers. And it wouldn’t happen to pandas. it wouldn’t happen to tigers. This isn’t scientific research. This is commercial whaling by another name. This is a loop hole in international ban on commercial whaling, which allows them to kill whales and market the meat. The meat ends up on sale in supermarkets in Japan. What particularly alarms activists is that this trip will target threatened fin whales and humpback whales. It’s the largest hunt for the once almost extinct humpbacks since the 60s. The Japanese argue that the stocks have recovered. Before commercial whaling began in earnest in the 20th century, humpback stocks stood at around 114000. By the time of the 1986 commercial ban, stocks had dropped to around 1200. But thereafter the population recovered, humpbacks were taken off the endangered list in 1990 and reclassed as vulnerable. By 1992, the humpback population was believed to be around 63000. Waiting to intercept the Japanese whaling fleet is the green peace vessel Esperanza. We’ve called on the Japanese government to cancel the hunt and to stop hunting whales in the name of science when this is completely unnecessary. You don’t need to have killed a whale to study it. But nevertheless the fleet hears the least, and so therefore we are here and we’ll be following the fleet down and protesting and doing everything that we can, peaceful means to stop them from killing whales in the southern ocean. Ultimately campaigners will not be able to entirely prevent scenes like these from happening, with the Japanese whale hunt due to continue into next year.
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