The whaling ships have a permit to catch 227 minke, Bryde’s\nand sei whales this year in Japanese waters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan’s last commercial hunt was in 1986, but it has\ncontinued whaling for what it says are research purposes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has now withdrawn from the International Whaling\nCommission (IWC) so is no longer subject to its rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IWC members had agreed to an effective ban on whale hunting,\nbut Japan has long argued it is possible to hunt whales in a sustainable way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enthusiasm among\nwhalers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The fisheries ministry has set a kill cap for the season of\n52 minke, 150 Bryde’s and 25 sei whales – a total of 227 animals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year’s catch quota, under its scientific programme –\nwhich Japan said aimed to gather population data – was 333 whales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “The resumption of commercial whaling has been an\nardent wish for whalers across the country,” the head of the agency,\nShigeto Hase, said at a departure ceremony in northern Kushiro for the small\nfleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said the resumption of whaling would ensure “the\nculture and way of life will be passed on to the next generation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “My heart is overflowing with happiness, and I’m deeply\nmoved,” said Yoshifumi Kai, head of the Japan Small-Type Whaling\nAssociation. “People have hunted whales for more than 400 years in my\nhometown.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’m a bit nervous but happy that we can start\nwhaling,” one whaler told AFP news agency before setting sail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t think young people know how to cook and eat\nwhale meat any more. I want more people try to taste it at least once.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘Pirate whaling’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, minke and Bryde’s whale are not endangered. Sei whale are classified as endangered, but their numbers are increasing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Conservationist groups like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd\nremain critical of Japan’s resumption of whaling, but say there are no concrete\nplans for action against the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “This is a sad day for whale protection globally,”\nsaid Nicola Beynon of Humane Society International, accusing Japan of beginning\na “new and shocking era of pirate whaling”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan “is out of step with the international\ncommunity”, Sam Annesley, executive director at Greenpeace Japan, said in\na statement when Tokyo announced its whaling plans last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like other whaling nations, Japan argues hunting and eating\nwhales are part of its culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A number of coastal communities in Japan have hunted whales\nfor centuries but consumption only became widespread after World War Two when\nother food was scarce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Didn’t Japan kill\nwhales all along?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Whales were brought to the brink of extinction by hunting in\nthe 19th and early 20th Century. In 1986, all IWC members agreed to a hunting\nmoratorium to allow whale numbers to recover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whaling countries – like Japan, Norway and Iceland – assumed\nthe moratorium would be temporary until everyone could agree on sustainable\nquotas. Instead it became a quasi-permanent ban. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 1987, Japan has killed between 200 and 1,200 whales each year under an exemption to the ban allowing scientific research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Critics say this was just a cover so Japan could hunt whales\nfor food, as the meat from the whales killed for research usually did end up\nfor sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, Japan tried one last time to convince the IWC to allow whaling under sustainable quotas, but failed. So it left the body, effective from July 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About Japan: <\/strong> The whaling ships have a permit to catch 227 minke, Bryde’s and sei whales this year in Japanese waters. Japan’s last commercial hunt was in 1986, but it has continued whaling for what it says are research purposes. It has now withdrawn from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) so is no longer subject to its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[58],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-3166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-international-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3168,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions\/3168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=3166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Capital: Tokyo
Currency: Japanese Yen
Prime Minister: Shinzo Abe <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"