Japan Plans to Expand Killing of Minke Whales
Japan told the International Whaling Commission in Ulsan, South Korea, that it would dramatically expand its research whaling, doubling the number of minke whales it kills annually for scientific study.
Japan said it would begin culling as many as 935 minke whales annually -- up from 440 this year. Japan says it kills whales to study them before selling the meat. That’s allowed under commission rules, but critics say it amounts to commercial whaling in disguise.
The commission, which has 66 members, banned commercial hunts in 1986, handing environmentalists a major victory in protecting species that were near extinction after centuries of whaling. Norway holds the world’s only commercial whaling season in defiance of the ban.
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