The largest predator in Norwegian waters is the sperm whale, and the largest fish is the basking shark.

This is a blue whale. We have blue whales in the waters around here, off Maldives, around the waters of India. You can see them off Kerala.

The black, you can't really see this, but these are Norwegian basking shark hunting vessels, and the black line in the crow's nest signifies this is a shark vessel rather than a whaling vessel.

Now, both species were hunted to the brink of extinction by the early whalers, but the Southern right whales have rebounded a lot better because they're located in places farther away from human activity.

One of Tilly s offspring, sold to an amusement park in Spain, has also killed a trainer, as have orcas in other parks.

Thirty years ago, Australian vessels, with the government s blessing, killed sperm whales off the West Australian coast.

MELBOURNE Last month, at the Sea World amusement park in Florida, a whale grabbed a trainer, Dawn Brancheau, pulled her underwater, and thrashed about with her.

While Japan has suspended its plan to kill humpback whales, its Japanese whaling fleet will still kill about 1,000 other whales, mostly smaller minke whales. Japan justifies its whaling as research, because the International Whaling Commission s rules allow member nations to kill whales for such purposes.

And to draw a contrast with that beleaguered North Atlantic population, I went to a new pristine population of Southern right whales that had only been discovered about 10 years ago in the sub Antarctic of New Zealand, a place called the Auckland Islands.

MELBOURNE Last month, at the Sea World amusement park in Florida, a whale grabbed a trainer, Dawn Brancheau, pulled her underwater, and thrashed about with her. By the time rescuers arrived, Brancheau was dead.