Greenpeace have set up a tent outside IWC59, where they are recording video blog entries for what they call the Whale Broadcasting Corporation. Their programming includes such items as "WBC News Update", "Good Morning Anchorage", and "Whales After Dark".

The latter sounds like a cetacean porn show, but Monday's premier episode was in fact a discussion panel including, among other luminaries, the Eastern Suburbs' very own John Howard mouthpiece, Malcolm Turnbull.

Greenpeace's coverage of IWC59, in text and video, can be followed at their Defending Whales blog.

The IWC has posted its official missive of Day Two. As I mentioned earlier today, the Alasakan-Chukotkan harvest of bowheads has been continued for another five years.

Also approved on Tuesday for the period 2008-2012 was the taking of 620 Eastern North Pacific gray whales, and the harvest of twenty humpback whales in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Denmark, on behalf of Greenland, is pushing for an increase in their aboriginal subsistence quota. Those sparks will fly Wednesday.

The full report of the Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling Subcommittee, which was the basis of Tuesday morning's discussions, can be read here.

Meanwhile, the Japan Times reports that head of the Japanese IWC delegation, Joji Morishita, denied that Japan is the Darth Vader of the marine world.

Finally, for a chuckle, check out the website of the Institute of Cetacean Research.

Which begs the question... who would be the Luke Skywalker?