30 minke whales were slaughtered by Japan off its northeast coast, in the first hunt ever since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the UN’s top court, ordered Tokyo to stop killing the animals in the Antarctic, the government said.
According to the Fisheries Agency, the Japanese whaling fleet that left the northeastern fishing town of Ayukawa in April completed its mission last week.
It was the first campaign since the ICJ said in March that Japan’s annual expedition to the Southern Ocean was a commercial activity camouflaged as research.
The hunt, which takes place in autumn and spring in coastal waters and in the northwestern Pacific is also classified as “research whaling”, but was not at issue in the ICJ case, which only addressed the Southern Ocean hunt.
According to the agency, Whalers killed 14 female and 16 male mammals, with an average length of about six metres.
Japan has hunted whales under a loophole in the 1986 global moratorium that allows lethal research on the mammals, but has made no secret of the truth that their meat ends up in fish markets and in restaurants.
Tokyo cancelled the 2014-15 seasons for its Antarctic hunt, and said it would redesign the controversial whaling mission in a bid to make it more scientific.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sparked fury in anti-whaling nations earlier this month when he told parliament he would boost up his efforts towards resume commercial whaling.
Anti-whaling activists and nations, including Australia and New Zealand, had hoped that Tokyo would use the cover afforded by the ICJ ruling to disentangle itself from a hardened position that whaling is an integral part of the culture and must be shielded.
Critics indicate that while whale meat was once an important source of protein, few Japanese now eat it, regardless of government subsidies.
But, a recent poll by a major national newspaper found a majority of those questioned supported Japan’s right to hunt the mammals.
According to Observers, the tactics of anti-hunt groups like Sea Shepherd, whose boats have harassed whalers in the Southern Ocean, has galvanized support among the population, where demands for an end to the mission are at times painted as cultural imperialism.