Greenpeace - Korea Building Whale Meat Factory

In early April, we uncovered plans by the Korean government to build a whale meat factory in Ulsan. The discovery added to growing evidence that Korea wants to reopen commercial whaling.

They say that the whale meat factory will merely be a sanitary measure -- a way to hygienically butcher the whales which are "accidentally" killed by becoming entangled in nets, and those which might be killed in a possible programme of "scientific whaling." Korea allows the commercial sale of whale meat from accidental kills. The Ministry didn't respond to our observation that Korea and Japan individually in 2003 caught more whales by accident than all the fishing fleets in the world combined reported.

Nor did they comment on the stories that local people have told us about some methods fisherman use to "accidentally" catch whales: ramming them with the ship to cause massive internal injuries.