Except for the sperm whale, most toothed whales are smaller than the baleen whales.

These humpback whales were getting killed.

Whales feed on small fish.

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.

It's actually about humpback whales.

Whale watching has grown quite rapidly.

Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser s conservative government accepted his recommendation that whaling be stopped, and Australia soon became an anti whaling nation.

Thus, whaling is unethical.

International Whaling Commission, Cambridge, United Kingdom

They claim that Western countries object to whaling because, for them, whales are a special kind of animal, as cows are for Hindus.

Despite the decision to resume commercial whale hunting in 2006, the tourism sector is expanding, especially in ecotourism and whale watching.

And I was thinking of humpback whales breaching and dolphins.

After that year it bred yearly in the Netherlands.

Greenpeace was thrilled. The whales were happy. That's a quote.

Now after I play back these humpback calls, I'll play blue whale calls, but they have to be sped up because they're so low in frequency that you wouldn't be able to hear it otherwise.

According to Saudi Arabia, these deaths include 57 bottlenose dolphins, 13 humpback whales, one finless porpoise, 14 dugongs and eight unidentified cetaceans.

Whale watching has become an important part of Iceland's economy since 1997.

Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted.

Humpbacks, when they develop the ability to sing this song, they're listening to other whales and modifying what they sing based on what they're hearing, just like song birds or the dolphin whistles I described.

So harpooned whales typically die slowly and painfully.

Until late 2012, it was known as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

But there is no essential human need that requires us to kill whales.

Eating whales is not necessary for the health or better nutrition of the Japanese.

History Observations about Cetacea have been recorded since at least classical times.

The total North Atlantic population is estimated to be between 600 and 1,500.

Unlike fins and blues, which disperse into the temperate and tropical oceans, the humpbacked whales congregate in local traditional breeding grounds, so they can make a sound that's a little higher in frequency, broader band and more complicated.

I've been working on whales and dolphins in Ireland for 20 years now, and they're kind of a bit more dramatic.

Thank you so much. I'm going to try to take you on a journey of the underwater acoustic world of whales and dolphins.

The change in public opinion about whaling has been dramatic, and not only in Australia.

But in the nine years before Drake struck oil, in 1859, at least five sixths of that whale oil illuminating market disappeared, thanks to fatal competitors, chiefly oil and gas made from coal, to which the whalers had not been paying attention.

I did not argue that whaling should stop because whales are endangered.

Well, okay, technically it's actually about Greenpeace, which is an environmental organization that wanted to stop the Japanese government on their whaling campaign.

They claim that Western countries object to whaling because, for them, whales are a special kind of animal, as cows are for Hindus. Western nations, the Japanese say, should not try to impose their cultural beliefs on them.

But what was even more important was the fact that they actually accomplished their mission. The Japanese government called off their whaling expedition. Mission accomplished.

So, here you see the cast. These are all of the people in The Whale Hunt and the two whales that were killed down here.

Last month, Australia led international protests against Japan s plan to kill 50 humpback whales.

Everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty elsewhere.

Indeed, Japan s desire to continue to kill whales is no less motivated by emotion than environmentalists opposition to it.

Whaling should stop because it brings needless suffering to social, intelligent animals capable of enjoying their own lives.

But, save for a few whalers and explorers, not many people ever went to have a closer look.

They are not often sighted at sea, and most of what is known about them comes from the examination of stranded specimens.

Approximately 2,300 years ago, Aristotle carefully took notes on cetaceans while traveling on boats with fishermen in the Aegean Sea.

The Japanese think that humpback whale numbers have increased sufficiently for the killing of 50 to pose no danger to the species.

In the United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service lists them as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

They wanted to put an end to it. And one of the ways they wanted to do it was to put a tracking chip inside one of these humpback whales.