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Japan will dispatch a whaling fleet to the Antarctic on Tuesday after a one year suspension, the government said, defying international criticism and a UN legal ruling that the "research" expedition is a commercial hunt in disguise.
"The research ships will depart for new whale research in the Antarctic on December 1, 2015," the Fisheries Agency said Monday in a statement on its website.
Tokyo has for years come under intense global pressure to stop hunts that opponents decry as inhumane but that Japan says are an inherent part of its traditional culture.
The United Nations' top legal body judged last year that Japan's so-called scientific whaling activity in the Southern Ocean was a disguise for commercial hunts.
It's for scientific research. Tasty, tasty research.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Wednesday December 02 2015, @02:45AM
There are 3 nations that actively and commercially kill wales.
1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Modern_whaling_.28since_about_1986.29 [wikipedia.org]
Iceland has steeply accelerated its commercial whaling, and Norway's quotas are still higher than Japan's. Japan's whaling program seems to be stubbornly stuck in the "it's not commercial" denial. Japan is also a major market for whale meat from Iceland and Norway.
Maybe economic sanctions are way to go. Human race is literally destroying the oceans, and we can't even leave whales be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @04:00PM
Iceland, Norway, and Japan:
A snippet from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, showing the alien ship coming to destroy us since there aren't any whales left.
Given that this was brought up in a movie *30* years ago, there is no excuse for us to even need to debate it today.
If they want fucking whale to consume, start growing it in whale farms, not slaughtering what is left of it on the open sea.