Posted at 4:16 a.m., Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Report: Japan resumes whaling in Antarctic waters
Associated Press
TOKYO — Japan has resumed its annual whale hunt in waters near Antarctica now that anti-whaling activists have stopped pursuing the Japanese fleet, a news report said today.Japan temporarily halted its hunt in mid-January after confrontations with both Greenpeace and the militant anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, according to Kyodo News agency.
Late last month, the vessels each group had sent to pursue the whalers returned to port to refuel.
The Japanese fleet decided to resume whaling because the threat of being interfered with had faded, Kyodo quoted unidentified Fisheries Agency officials as saying.
Phones rang unanswered Tuesday evening at the Fisheries Agency and the Institute of Cetacean Research, the government-affiliated organization that oversees the hunt. Calls also went unanswered at Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, the company that operates Japan's hunting ships.
Japan has staunchly defended its annual killing of more than 1,000 whales, conducted under a clause in International Whaling Commission rules that allows whales to be killed for scientific purposes.
Critics dismiss the Japanese program as a disguise for commercial whaling, which has been banned by the IWC since 1986.
