Whales need saving from more than stranding

There is an irony as deep as the big blue ocean that while stranded pilot whales were being saved in Golden Bay, a few hundred kilometers south rare minke whales were being slaughtered by Japanese pirates, Green Party Conservation Spokesperson Metiria Turei says.

"Kia kaha to Greenpeace, their shocking footage of high seas butchery in a whale sanctuary has shown the total, unrelenting moral bankruptcy of Japan's so-called scientific whaling programme.

"The Greens call on all New Zealanders who felt for the whales in Golden Bay, or have seen the Greenpeace film, to write to the Japanese Government and express their outrage.

"We also applaud Conservation Minister Chris Carter's release this afternoon of a scientific critique of Japan's whaling. We are pleased to be working with him to progress the issue on the political level.

"Japan's whaling is about a meat market, it has nothing to do with cultural expression whatsoever," Mrs Turei says.

The Greenpeace film of the Japanese whalers is at http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/ocean-defenders-tv. Messages can be sent to the Japanese Embassy in Wellington via http://www.nz.emb-japan.go.jp/feedback.html or PO Box 6340, Wellington.

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