Japan has unveiled a plan to kill 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean next year as part of its push to resume whaling following a legal setback instigated by Australia.
The plan, released by the Japanese government on Tuesday, sets out a 12-year program that would result in the slaughter of a total of 3,996 whales. The whales will be hunted in a vast sweep of Antarctic waters, including ocean claimed by Australia.
The 333 annual figure is a sharp reduction in the previous quota Japan awarded itself last year, when it aimed to take 855 minke whales, 50 humpback whales and 10 fin whales. Japan ended up harpooning far fewer than this amount, however, due to the disruptive tactics of anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd.
Japan suspended its annual whale hunt following an adverse ruling at the international court of justice in March. The case brought by Australia and supported by New Zealand successfully argued that Japan’s program was not scientific and was simply a façade for commercial whaling.
However, Japan has committed to starting a new whaling program in the Southern Ocean at the end of 2015. This is despite a non-binding vote at a International Whaling Commission meeting in September, which demanded strict limits upon Japan’s whaling activities.
At the September meeting, Greg Hunt, Australia’s environment minister, said his country’s opposition to whaling remained.
“Australia is of the view that lethal scientific research is not necessary,” he said. “All information necessary for the contemporary conservation and management of whales can be obtained non-lethally.”
Darren Kindleysides, director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the new plan was merely a “repackaging” of the previous JARPA II, the official name of the Japanese whaling program.
“We can collect all the information we need from whales using non-lethal means and the ICJ said Japan needs to look at those non-lethal means,” he told Guardian Australia. “And yet the bottom line is that Japan wants to kill more than 300 minke whales.
“Japan is trying its best to push through what it has done in the past. They are thumbing their nose to the ICJ and the international community.
“The onus is on our prime minister to tell his Japanese counterpart that Australia won’t stand idly by and watch whalers return to the Southern Ocean. We need to tell Japan we are deeply unhappy they have put forward a so-called scientific plan so soon after such a damning judgment against them.”
Patrick Ramage, the global whale program director for International Fund for Animal Welfare, said: “This plan should be dead on arrival when it arrives at the IWC scientific committee next year.
“It is time for Japan to finally end its outdated, cruel and unscientific killing of whales.”
