The International Whaling Commission under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling placed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. However, member countries are allowed to issue permits to themselves to kill whales for scientific research.
Last year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan should stop hunting whales in Southern ocean prompting the country to submit a revised proposal.
Japan, with its new program, NEWREP-A (New Scientific Whale Research Program in the Antarctic Ocean), proposed killing up to 333 minke whales each year until 2027 starting from December 2015. IWC’s Scientific Committee, in its meeting on Friday, said it wasn’t able to make a decision as the proposal contained insufficient information and asked Japan to give additional details.
The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) and several other marine biologists have long demanded an end to annual “research” hunt in the Antarctic by Japanese vessels. Japan has killed over 10,000 whales since 1987 simply by issuing scientific research permits to whale hunters. WWF spokesperson Aimee Leslee says:
There is no reason to be killing whales today for science. We know it, the world knows it, and now even the International Court of Justice has recognized that Japan’s programme was not science. We hope that the Scientific Committee will do the right thing and state that there is no way Japan can go whaling again and continue to call it science.
Meanwhile, Japanese Officials said then that whaling would resume in the 2015- 2016 season and they expected a positive decision from IWC.
