Japan called off the majority of its whaling for the 2014-15 season after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that its whale hunting in the Antarctic should stop because the country could not prove a need to kill the animals. Japan has long maintained that most whales are not endangered and that eating whale is part of the Japanese food culture.
However, the International Whaling Commission says it is opposed to a new Japanese whaling plan to take 333 whales in the Antarctic, saying that number is too high. “The current proposal does not demonstrate the need for lethal sampling to achieve those objectives,” the IWC wrote in a press release first reported by Reuters.
On Monday, Japan’s representative to the IWC said the country would provide additional material before the next IWC meeting in May that Tokyo hopes will alleviate any concerns. Japan has not provided specifics on the material.
Japan started doing what it called “scientific whaling” in 1987, a year after a moratorium on international whaling took effect, and in the face of global opposition.
Japan already conducts whale hunting in the northern Pacific that is not affected by the international court’s decision.
