FUNCHAL, Portugal, June 23 (UPI) -- Leisel Jones, an Australian Olympic champion swimmer, presented a petition against the taking of whales Tuesday to the International Whaling Commission.
The petition's 15,000 signatures were gathered by the World Society for the Protection of Animals, The Hobart Examiner reported. The IWC is meeting on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
Jones spoke against the Antarctic whaling carried out every year by Japan. The commission had just heard evidence that 195 of the 679 minke whales taken by the Japanese fleet last year were carrying fetuses.
"I think the other issue we're trying to get across is 30 per cent of the times these whales are actually pregnant," Jones said. "We don't actually know just how much the whale population is going down if they're killing mothers who are about to give birth."
Jones has competed in three Olympics, in 2000 when she was only 15, in 2004 when she was part of a gold-medal relay team and at last year's Games in Beijing when she won a gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke.
But she said this is her first experience of trying to influence an international body.
"It was all so political, it was crazy," she said. "I loved it."
