It's time for us whale lovers to hold our breath and cross our fingers yet again as we watch developments at the 59th meeting of the International Whaling Commission, now underway in Anchorage, Alaska.
For the past few years the IWC, charged by the United Nations with protecting whales, has been the focus of serious lobbying by some whaling nations to allow a resumption of commercial whaling - suspended since 1986 following a dramatic decline in the number of great whales worldwide.