South Korea Linked to Illegal Whale Hunting

So says the environmentalists:

South Korean fishermen caught 80 percent more whales than they officially reported, a finding that is fuelling suspicions that — far from accidentally netting cetaceans — they deliberately try to snare them, New Scientist says.

In a report carried in this Saturday’s issue, the British science weekly cites DNA experts, who estimate South Korean trawlermen caught 827 minke whales between 1999 and 2003.

This compares with the figure of 458 that the fishermen officially reported to the authorities. Whale meat can be sold legally in South Korea if the animals are caught by accidentally in fishing nets, but these deaths must be reported to the authorities.

I wouldn’t be surprised that some illegal whale hunting is going on in Korea, but I have to wonder about the data collection methods of the researchers to determine this:

Scientists led by Scott Baker of Oregon State University bought minke meat in South Korean markets and used DNA "fingerprinting" — getting the genetic ID of each animal — to calculate how many individual whales had been caught.

The figure of 827 is arrived at mathematically, using the number of signatures to estimate the whales’ population and the size of the so-called bycatch over the four years.

I fail to see how genetically testing a few strips of whale meat leads to the number of 827?  I like whales as much as the next person, but whale protesters have very little creditability with me, especially when read things like this and the fact that the top whale environmentalist Paul Watson preaches that mankind is a virus that needs to be wiped out.