Over Meal Of Whale Meat, Japan Announces Plan To Restart "Scientific" Whaling In Antarctica

Friday, April 18, 2014 - 17:30 in Health & Medicine

Harpooned whale A whale captured by the Yushin Maru, a Japanese harpoon vessel, in February 2008. Customs and Border Protection Service, Commonwealth of Australia On March 31, Japan was ordered to halt its whaling program in Antarctica by a United Nations court, which ruled that the activity amounted to a commercial operation and was not for research purposes as stated. Now, less than three weeks later, Japan announced it will re-launch its whale-killing "research" operation next year, while addressing objections raised by the UN's International Court of Justice.  The court's decision gave Japan a golden opportunity to ditch a practice that has brought international condemnation, and which doesn't appear to be that popular in Japan itself, as the country no longer consumes much whale meat. “We are revising the contents of the research to take into consideration the court’s decision to...

Read the whole article on PopSci

More from PopSci

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net