Return to commercial whale hunts in Japan

NATION’S STOCKS ‘HAVE RECOVERED’

JAPAN has announced it is leaving the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to resume hunting the animals for commercial use – but said it will no longer go to the Antarctic.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the hunts will be limited to Japan’s territorial waters and its 200-mile exclusive economic zone along the country’s coasts, and that Japan will stop its whaling expeditions to the Antarctic and north-west Pacific oceans.

Japan will resume commercial whaling in July 2019 after a 30-year absence “in line with Japan’s basic policy of promoting sustainable use of aquatic living resources,” he said. “Regrettably, we have reached a decision that it is impossible in the IWC to seek the coexistence of states with different views,” Mr Suga added.

Mr Suga said the IWC has been dominated by conservationists and Japan was disappointed over its efforts to manage whale stocks even though the IWC has a treaty mandate for both whale conservation and development of the whaling industry.

The IWC imposed a commercial moratorium in the 1980s due to a dwindling whale population.

Japan switched to what it calls research whaling and says stocks have recovered. The country has hunted whales for centuries, but reduced its catch following international protests and declining demand for whale meat at home.