126. The JARPA II Research Plan sets out the bases for Japan’s conclusion that the lethal sample sizes described above are designed to avoid having any adverse effect on the targeted whale stocks. The Research Plan states that, based on current abundance estimates, the planned take of each species is too small to have any negative effect. Japan also explains that the JARPA II Research Plan used conservative estimates of Antarctic minke whale abundance to assess the effects of the target sample size for that species.