Japan and whaling

I see Japan is going to press ahead with hunting whales by exploiting a loophole in the rules (see here). Clearly Japan thinks it's fine to hunt intelligent creatures, so I'm going to propose we do our bit to control a certain group's numbers and introduce hunting in our town streets on Japanese tourists. Outraged? I bet you are, yet clearly Japan condones this kind of hunting so I'm guessing it can't really complain, especially if we claim to use the numbers we kill for "scientific research" (while actually selling them as meat). Hmm, maybe we should harpoon them too, so they get to die slowly and painfully...

I feel sick writing that. I wouldn't want to kill anyone, but at the same time how can anyone condone pushing a species to extinction (having pushed it to the brink already)? Japan isn't prepared to play fair in this - it bribes landlocked countries in return for their votes, exploits the loophole and claims whale numbers are far more numerous than they already are (after whaling cut some species by over 90%). Sure, the human race as a whole is doing this to many species in less blatant ways, but when you can easily attribute one activity - whaling - to the destruction of an entire species, surely even we aren't so blind as to let Japan get away with this?

I confidently bet that no trade agreements will be threatened because of this. Oh the wonderful world we live in!