The Humpback Whales are Safer

It has been shown that pressure can help to save the whales. Last year, Japan announced a quota for humpback whales in this year's fishing season. This would have been the first time since the 1960s that these whales would have been hunted by the Japanese. But, after intense pressure, the Japanese government have scrapped these plans.
Japan has been known to conduct research on humpback whales that is only allowed because of a loophole in the Whaling Commission. This research is said to be lethal, but the hunt is disguised as commercial whaling (the meat ends up in supermarkets) and so it is allowed.
Many countries complained about the Japanese hunt, and Australia and New Zealand exerted enough pressure that the Japanese has backed down. Also, the activists on the Sea Shepherd disrupted last year's (entirely legal) whale hunt, so it is thought that they would have been more voracious this year.
Although I disagree with the Sea Shepherd's methods, I think that animal cruelty is unneccessary and unneeded, and it needs to end. However, I'd like to believe that the intense pressure from all of the anti-whaling countries helped to put an end of Japan's research, and that this pressure could work in many other cases where animals are put at risk of extinction or in harm's way.

Japan will not hunt humpback whales this year
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/3456101/Japan-will-not-hunt-humpack-whales-this-year.html