Japanese whaling ships yesterday set sail for the Antarctic on the lookout for whales, but only to count them and take skin samples, after a UN court ordered an end to the annual hunt.
Two ships — the 657-tonne Yushinmaru and the 678-tonne Daini (No. 2) Yushinmaru — weighed anchor from a port in Shimonoseki City, a major whaling base, a government official said.
A third boat, the Nisshinmaru, is to begin its voyage on Friday next week to offer logistical support, the Japanese Fisheries Agency said.
Tokyo has said this season’s excursion, expected to last until March 28, would not involve any lethal hunting. Harpoons normally used in the capture of the giant mammals have been removed.
Crew members on the two boats are to carry out “sighting surveys” and take skin samples from the huge marine mammals, the agency said.
The non-lethal research by the Institute of Cetacean Research comes after the International Court of Justice ruled in March last year that Tokyo was abusing a scientific exemption set out in a 1986 moratorium on whaling.
The UN court concluded that Tokyo was carrying out a commercial hunt under a veneer of science.
After the ruling, Japan said it would cancel this winter’s Antarctic mission, but has since expressed its intention to resume “research whaling” this year and next year.
In a new plan submitted to the International Whaling Commission and its Scientific Committee, Tokyo set an annual target of 333 minke whales for future hunts, down from about 900 under the previous program.
It also defined the research period as 12 years from this fiscal year in response to the court’s criticism of the program’s open-ended nature.
Japan killed 251 minke whales in the Antarctic in the 2013-2014 season and 103 the previous year, far below its target because of direct action by conservationist group Sea Shepherd.
Tokyo also conducts hunts in the name of science in the Northwest Pacific, where it killed 132 whales in 2013, and off the Japanese coast, where it caught 92.
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