Animal rights activists have expressed outrage after a report on Japan’s “scientific whaling” programme showed that more than two-thirds of the female minke whales harpooned in the Southern Ocean earlier this year were pregnant females. The report, submitted to a meeting of the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission in Slovenia earlier this month, also showed that 53 of the 333 whales slaughtered were juvenile animals. “The killing of 122 pregnant whales is a shocking statistic and sad indictment on the cruelty of Japan’s whale hunt”, said Alexia Wellbelove, of the Australia branch of Humane Society International. “It is further demonstration, if needed, of the truly gruesome and unnecessary nature of whaling operations, especially when non-lethal surveys have been shown to be sufficient for scientific needs”, she said. Activists accuse Tokyo of ignoring a ruling in 2014 by the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, that Japan’s whaling was a commercial exe