There are only two kinds of people in this world: those who like to watch whales and those who prefer to eat them. After a 20-year moratorium on commercial whaling, the 73-member International Whaling Commission (IWC) will hold its annual meeting in Anchorage in May to continue the cetacean cold war. To the dismay of conservationists — led by those in Australia and the U.S. — Japan continues to hunt whales in the name of scientific research, while Iceland and Norway have chosen simply to ignore the moratorium.
Last year Japan's allies won their first IWC victory — by a scant one-vote majority — when they passed a resolution declaring the moratorium unnecessary. But it's unlikely that they will gather the required three-fourths vote to overturn the ban. So the world will continue to be divided: Are whales majestic wonders of nature or tempting marbled meat?