No offense Mike, but going after a defenseless Humpback whale with an explosive harpoon puts a different slant on the definition of "sportsman"...
Commercial hunting and fishing isn't usually very sporting. We eat lots of criters that are harvested from the sea. From what I've read and heard, many of those fisheries are either strained from over fishing or the harvest poses other threats to the environment.
I don't have a problem with the Native American tribe in the PNW who take several whales a year as is their custom. I wouldn't have a problem with an indigenous people in Japan doing something similar.
We have similar issues all over. Do some reading on the spearing of spawning walley pike in Wisconsin by native americans. The practice is permitted because of a treaty that dates back almost 200 years. There was a big stink over it back in the 80's.
1000 whales total for "Scientific Research" is a blatant lie. If it really was non-profit research, they would dispose of the carcasses in a non-commercial way. It's all a sham perpetrated by the corporation that owns and runs the whaling fleet. And it is a commercial processing operation, equipped with multiple chase boats - not a scientific research vessel.
CNN just showed the whale ship leaving port. There were streamers in the air like it was a cruise ship departure. Don't try to tell me that wasn't staged for the cameras by the corporation or the Fisheries Agency...
I don't know if it's a sham or not. I don't know if any laws are being broken or if it makes sense to harvest any wales from a conservation point of view. I do know that private citizens attacking them at sea sounds more like piracy than conservation. Don't they hang pirates?