Dust down the slogan, it’s needed once again: Save The Whale. Twenty years on from the introduction of the international whaling moratorium that was supposed to protect them, the great whales face renewed and mortal dangers in 2006. A double threat is looming for the world’s largest mammals, many of them endangered species, in the coming year. In the biggest whale slaughter for a generation, more than 2,000 animals are likely to be directly hunted by the three countries continuing whaling in defiance of world opinion, Japan, Norway and Iceland. And in a crucial political move, this year the pro-whaling nations look likely to achieve their first majority of votes in whaling’s regulatory body, the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The first development will be brutal, bloody and shocking to many people who might be under the impression that whaling is a thing of the past. But the second may be even more significant for whale welfare in the long term, for it would pave the way for an eventual resumption of commercial whaling, which the 1986 moratorium put on indefinite hold. Japan is leading the way on both counts. Its whaling fleet is firing harpoons right […]