They're taking a break this winter.
At a news conference following a Cabinet meeting earlier today, the Japanese fisheries minister has stated that Japan will suspend its research whaling in the Antarctic Ocean for the duration of this winter. He said that Japan realized that whales do no reproduce at a fast enough rate to allow their sizable annual harvests to be sustainable finds it too difficult to secure the safety of its whaling crews due to interference from Sea Shepherd ships.
Who would have thought; those damn sea hippies pulled it off!
