Whales visit Japanese elementary school
An elementary school on one of the islands between Kyushu and Okinawa offers its students something very cool – the ability to look out to sea from their playground and see real live whales.
The whales are humpbacks, which come to the safety of the warm waters to raise offspring. The teachers make an announcement over the loudspeakers whenever they come close to the school. The children don’t seem to realize the unique coolness of being able to easily watch whales from their school.
Note: Japan’s whaling program does not hunt humpback whales. There was a proposal last year for Japanese whalers to hunt up to 50 humpbacks a year in the Southern Pacific, but the plan was abandoned. According to the IWC, there are approximately 30,000 to 51,000 humpback whales in the Southern Pacific. In the Northern Hemisphere (where the above-mentioned island is located), humpbacks are considerably less common.
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