TEMPO.CO, Japan - Japan's whaling fleet set out for the Antarctic on Tuesday, December 1, 2015, to continue to hunt the mammals after a year-long hiatus. The move raised criticism from Australia and its key ally, the United States.
Japan is planning to fish 300 whales before the hunting season ends in 2016 and nearly 4,000 more over the next 12 years, which the country claims to be part of a scientific whale research program.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled last year that Japan's whaling activity in the Southern Ocean should stop while an International Whaling Commission (IWC) panel said in April that Japan had yet to demonstrate a need for killing whales.
However, Tokyo decided to revise its plan for the 2015/16 season to cut the number of minke whales it intends to capture to 333, down by two-thirds from previous hunts.
"Last year, regrettably, the ICJ made its ruling and we were unable to take whales," said Tomoaki Nakao, the mayor of the western city of Shimonoseki that is home to the whaling fleet and part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's election district, as quoted by Reuters.
"There's nothing as happy as this day," Nakao told the fleet's crew at a ceremony prior to their departure.
The action inevitably received strong opposition from environmental activists. "It is completely unacceptable for the Japanese government to ignore the International Court of Justice," said Junichi Sato, executive director of Greenpeace Japan, in a statement.
Sato added that the activity is just "straight up commercial whaling" instead of being part f a scientific research.
REUTERS
