A third of the whales harpooned by Japan in the Antarctic last summer were pregnant. Japan's own figures, revealed in secret documents discovered at the International Whaling Commission meeting held recently, showed the true nature of the country's whale hunting.

Japan's 2008/2009 hunt showed of 679 whales it reported killing, 304 were female. The data showed 192 of the whales were pregnant. Four were lactating which mean their calves would have starved to death. Data also contained contained details of how whale foetuses were treated after being torn from their mothers on board the factory ship, simply to measure the length and weight of the foetus and take skin samples from the foetus for genetic studies. During the 2007-2008 hunt, the Daily Telegraph published photos of a minke whale and her calf being hauled aboard a Japanese factory ship to be dismembered. The details of Japan's impact on female whales was contained in what is known as a "Cruise Report", secretly sent to the IWC's scientific committee before this years' IWC meeting in Portugal.

Japan has killed more than 13,000 whales in the name of research since a moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986. The International Whaling Commission ended its annual meeting after failing to reach consensus on key issues, particularly the proposed whaling in Japan's coastal waters and a Danish proposal on humpback hunting off Greenland. However, IWC member countries did adopt a resolution on climate change which states that climate change is a key threat to whales and urges governments to commit to reducing their carbon emissions at the United Nations Climate meeting in Copenhagen in December.

In the meantime, Norway and Iceland together will continue to kill around 2,000 whales annually.