The Fin whale is endangered in the Southern Ocean, not world wide.

I think the ban on hunting whales was necessary and proper. Blue, Sperm, Humpback and Right whales were teetering on the edge of extinction and are still balanced precariously. But focus on Japanese whaling, as opposed to other fisheries, is rank opportunism and donation seeking based on emotion and propaganda, not on science. Meanwhile European, Chinese and Japanese factory trawlers literally hoovered up the codfish with "environmentalists" hardly turning a hair.