We stopped because the populations were becoming overstressed and we realized it was neither sustainable nor practical when other abundant sources of meat were available.
The western nations weren't whaling for meat, they were whaling for oil to fuel their industrial revolutions. And they stopped not because whale populations were overexploited per se, but because this over-exploitation had made it so hard to find whales to catch that other forms of oil production simply became more economical.
Whaling for food continued, continues, and will continue because, while there isn't much oil on a minke whale, there is plenty of very good meat on them, which makes it worthwhile. Why destructively create farms on land to raise cattle when you can just send a ship out into the ocean and get 10-20 times the meat off a single minke that you can from a cow? Other whale stocks are recovering from past overexploitation as well, and the future of sustainable whaling for food is bright.
Also as I said, but you skipped over, you are fortunate that India does not try to impose it's way of thinking on your beef eating habits the way you do the Japanese and other with whale eating habits.
Yes. Antarctic minke whales were not so significantly depleted from their initial level of pre-whaling abundance in the first place, and haven't been subject to any commercial catch for 20 years. Hence as a resource they are under-exploited.
So your solution is to move away from what was once an abundant and plentiful food source of food (before the Japanese over-harvested them) and create a demand for a species who's numbers only range in the thousands.
So now tuna over-harvesting is all Japan's fault as well...
Do you think that incorrect attribution of blame is likely to see the problems rectified?
http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=126840
Japan has contributed it's own share to tuna over-exploitation, but you are living on another planet (probably one created by western fishing nations) if you believe that this is all Japan's fault.
Tell me, what part of creating a large consumer demand for whales
I'm not suggesting creating a "large" consumer demand for whales, I'm suggesting permitting *sustainable* whale harvests.
However many whales can be sustainably harvested is the number of whales that I think is the maximum that should be put on the market.
And with this sustainably produced whale meat available, whale meat prices should come down a bit, making it more attractive to consumers here, and maybe even make it more attractive than tuna. In turn reducing demand for tuna, and in turn taking away one incentive for the tuna-fishing industry to over-exploit.
(most who are threatened or endangered)
I'd settle for at least sustainable harvests of abundant ones first, and in the dictionary sense of the word I don't think any truely endangered species should be hunted. There is a difference though between what the dictionary describes as endangered and what the IUCN describes as "endangered", particularly where whales and fish are concerned.
and others who's numbers are being estimated as lower and lower every time I look (not even scratching the one million mark as of now)
This is based on a bit of information leaked prematurely by the Australian government, without any of the associated context that will eventually be released with it by the IWC Scientific Committee once they agree the situation in June, two months from now?
sounds likes a good idea?
The alternative is to NOT sustainably utilise abundant whale resources in line with unequivocal scientific advice that safe sustainable whaling catch limits could be set, thus NOT increasing sustainable alternatives to tuna product.
how do you think it would be so different with whales which are nowhere near as important to the Japanese as tuna?
Tuna harvests are currently regulated individually by each nation. Many have done a bad job, Japan being no exception, which is why they had to do this for example:
http://www.oprt.or.jp/eng/e_news_060425.html
However, whales are an entirely different kettle of fish. Japan wants permission to hunt whales, not under a Japanese managed regulatory system, but an international one, including satellite vessel monitoring, international observers on board the ships, DNA registration of every whale put on the market, and an international oversight committee to monitor the effectiveness of the regulations. And also inline with unequivocal scientific advice from the IWC's scientific committee that the catch limits set in accordance with the RMP would be safe.
Unfortunately the IWC has not fulfilled it's responsibility so Japan with other like-minded nations is seemingly looking at the possibility of establishing an alternative international organization that will pick up the ball.
in one breath you say the Japanese want to eat whales forever and in the next you claim that hunting whales is all for science. Make up your mind.
Again I find myself thinking that you appear to have no interest in thinking about "how many whales may be taken sustainably", but I'll explain it anyway, step by step, nice and easy:
1) Some people think whales are tasty, and hope to be able to eat them forever (at least try to see it from someone else's perspective! otherwise you will never be able to have fruitful discussion on this topic)
2) Whales have in the past been over-exploited and it is now well-known that there is not an infinite supply of whales (thankfully many are now recovering from this past over-exploitation)
3) So how do people get to eat whales forever if the supply of whales is not infinite?
4) => Stock / Resource management!
4a) Whales live in the oceans. We can count them, but (and this piece you have been able to grasp) not with extremely precise accuracy, but at least with reasonable certainty about minimum numbers.
4b) We could catch whales based on these minimum estimated numbers and very conservative assumptions about whale reproduction and natural mortality (this is how the RMP calculates catch limits)...
4c) ... but if we have greater certainty about our numbers and research whale biology, we can potentially eliminate implausible assumptions made, and set catch limits for whales with more safety and accuracy - perhaps also allowing for increases in the numbers of whales caught.
5) Thus, people who hope to eat whales forever have a strong incentive to conduct research that can improve stock management (the IWC Scientific Committee has agreed that Japan's data has the potential to support scientific analyses that could facilitate that).
Now, if you recall the current situation, the Japanese hope to eat whales forever, therefore they have an incentive to do research, and they can because international agreements explicitly admit every nation to conduct research. However the broken IWC currently does not set commercial catch limits for whaling, and so the only whaling that Japan can conduct in accordance with the ICRW is research whaling.
Under normal circumstances (i.e., non-zero catch limits for abundant species), Japan would be able to obtain some of the data it obtains through it's research whaling from commercial samples, but the IWC decision to impose a moratorium precludes that at the moment. On the other hand, it has meant that, without being able to hunt commercially, the hunting that is done is designed specifically to target random animals and thus hopefully give more useful data to analyze. I expect that Japan will continue to conduct research whaling in conjunction with commercial whaling in future, for this reason.
Also, I might remind you that only a tiny percentage of the Japanese population eats whales on a regular basis
I don't know why you think this is relevant to the discussion at this point, but you've got it wrong anyway: Few Japanese people eat whales on a regular basis because the "commercial whaling moratorium" resulted in the level of whale meat supplied to the market drop around 90%. There is only enough meat to provide one slice of whale sashimi to every Japanese citizen once a year, so it's obvious that few can eat it regularly.
and even you are saying that a demand needs to be created for it.
That's your lack of comprehension ability at work, not what I am saying.
It seems you are not concerned for the whales or even sustainability if you think it is a good idea to create a demand
Negative. There already is demand. I'm talking about catching more abundant whales, and this increases SUPPLY, not demand. And do you know what happens when supply increases? It generally puts downward pressure on prices.
What increases demand is things like lunatic nutcase "activitists" hurling dangerous objects at, and illegally boarding whaling vessels, as this puts whale meat in people's minds. I suppose we do have a bit of that too, but I don't see you complaining about that.
thus raising the number of whales the Japanese would harvest which ultimately results in an imbalance of demand and supply.
Exactly, and that's why prices would be expected to fall, and make whale a more attractive option than tuna, as compared to now.
As of now they are catching about 1500 whales (in total), this with only a small consumer base. The population of Japan is about 127,433,494,
That's a pretty big consumer base then, isn't it?
the Minke whale population on a good day is about 200 000 - 600 000. Is this sustainable if demand increases?
If demand increases, prices will go up. Demand increasing doesn't mean supply increases. How can more people demanding whale meat result in more whales being caught, if the IWC were doing it's job and regulating whaling as Japan is requesting it to?
Comparing killing humans with killing whales is ridiculous. You should have picked a different species.
It is a valid question in regards to population...
So pick a species which doesn't result in your analogy talking about murder of humans.
Were the numbers not just revealed to be wrong by about half?
As I said above, the information that has been leaked by Australian government sources is ... well, it's information that has been leaked by Australian government sources and thus you can think about what that means about it's completeness.
As much as you like to call this science and tote it as infallible logic it is really just best guess.
No, that's just your thoroughly unscientific evaluation. You haven't studied much science, statistics or mathematics have you? It shows.
So Humpbacks, Fin whales, Sei whales, Bryde whales, and, Sperm whales are not on the endangered species list?
Your assumption that a species being on someone's "endangered species" list means the species is necessarily in danger of extinction if we hunt any of them is false.
There findings came from the 'scientific' papers that came directly from the Institute of Cetacean Research that the Japanese themselves wrote and funded. I see no one disputing these findings except for you two...simply because the scientists in question are Australian.
Well, I've actually read a lot of the reports and discussion about Japan's data, so I know hysterical BS when I see it. If you think Mr. Gales' PR is a fair, balanced and accurate representation of the research, I can only ask whether you also think you are living in The Matrix.
We live in a world where there is a sensible explanation for the situation which does not require huge jumps of logic, denial of facts, or subscription to a conspiracy theory 
