South Korean whale hunt plan attacked
Proposal to kill creatures for scientific research met with anger from Australia, New Zealand and several campaign groupsAustralia and other countries have condemned a South Korean plan to begin killing whales in its coastal waters in the name of scientific research.The proposal, announced at an occasionally bad-tempered meeting of the International Whaling Commission [IWC] in Panama, would allow South Korea to use a loophole in the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling to hunt the mammals under the guise of scientific research.Japan uses the same clause to kill hundreds of whales in the Antarctic every year, although for the past two years its fleet has returned with a fraction of its planned catch following confrontations with the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd.The South Korean delegation did not say how many whales it would kill, but insisted it did not need foreign approval. It added that minke whale numbers in its coastal...
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