Dr Singer is correct when he points out the hypocrisy of Westerners who protest the killing of whales when Western societies factory-farm animals in conditions that don't allow them any freedom or natural behaviours or any happiness or comfort or joy in their short, brutal lives. (Yes, animals feel all those things; we are not alone on this planet with our emotions; animals are our fellow travellers).

So whales live lives full of all the natural behaviours that we deny most of our food animals, and then they die.

But there are two valid reasons to protest the killing of whales. First, most whale species are close to extinction or edging closer; and second, when we slaughter animals, we don't blow them up and let them die slowly.

No one completely owns the moral highground except those who eat no meat or animal products, and that includes a lot of Japanese vegans.

But for Western sensibilities to be repelled by the method of slaughter of endangered animals is very legitimate, and the Japanese are not going to win this public relations fight, not even among most Japanese.