Japan is withdrawing from an international group that bans commercial whaling, saying it will resume commercial hunts for the first time in 30 years next July. Japan will leave the International Whaling Commission, which put a moratorium on commercial whaling in the 1980s.
“Japan argues that it has a long tradition of whaling, even though Japanese today eat very little whale meat,” NPR’s Anthony Kuhn reports from Tokyo.
In a notable shift, Japan also said it will no longer conduct controversial hunts in the Antarctic Ocean — where its fleet of whaling ships have killed 333 whales in each of the past two years, under the justification of performing whale research.
Read this story now for free
To continue reading, sign up for our newsletter and get unlimited access to WABE.org
You can select your preferences for news and local content. We will never share your email address. Learn how your newsletter sign-up will support WABE and Public Media
