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Japanese whaling vessels on Tuesday departed from a port in Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan to join a fleet that will begin hunting whales for "scientific research" in a controversial move that marks the first hunt since an international court ruled against the practice a year ago.
Two ships left from Yamaguchi Prefecture to join the main hunting ship Nisshin Maru which hails from Hiroshima Prefecture and another vessel that departed from Miyagi Prefecture on Monday. The fleet will head to oceans in the Antarctic for the season's hunt.
The four ship fleet, along with a patrol vessel, will resume its controversial "scientific whaling" program from the end of this month through to March next year, following a one year hiatus brought on by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Japan's so-called research was unscientific and subsequently suspended the program in March 2014.
Japan's Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has said that it will scale back the number of minke whales it hunts to 333, some two-thirds less than previous hunts, but activists maintain that the whales' numbers are limited and Japan's program is commercial rather than scientific and beyond this, barbaric and unsustainable.
Officials from the Fisheries Ministry however have claimed that the numbers of whales are sustainable and the research is a step towards Japan resuming its fully-fledged commercial whaling ambitions. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has backed the long-term goal, and his pro-whaling message was read out at a ceremony Tuesday, before the ships embarked for the Antarctic.
At the pre-departure ceremony a local official said that today was a "happy day" as the fleet had been prevented from "taking whales" due to the court's ruling.
"Last year, regrettably, the ICJ made its ruling and we were unable to take whales. There's nothing as happy as this day," Tomoaki Nakao, the mayor of the western city of Shimonoseki home to much of Japan's whaling fleet was quoted as saying at the ceremony. The western city is also part of Abe's electoral district.
Hiroshi Moriyama, Japan's agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister said meanwhile that the end of the whaling hiatus "helps promote the policy aimed at resuming commercial whaling." Moriyama added that Japan would do its best to gain the understanding from the international community.
But this could be wishful thinking as there has been an almighty backlash from the international community, spearheaded by Australia who first brought the case against Japan to the ICJ, backed by a number of other countries and independent activists.
"It's not scientific research, it's straight-up commercial whaling, and it's been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice," Nathaniel Pelle from Greenpeace Australia was quoted as saying as regards Japan's actual purpose for its seasonal whaling programs.
The Fisheries Agency has tried to force its case saying that along with catching less whales, it also intends to conduct "visual surveys" and collect various samples, including from the whales' skin, with the intention of supporting its "scientific" research, as laid out previously in its plans presented to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), an intergovernmental body charged with both conserving and regulating the species.
While the IWC panel ultimately failed to reach a clear consensus on Japan's new whaling plan at its meeting earlier this year, the environmental activist group Sea Shepherd has said it would head to the Antarctic Ocean to impede the Japanese fleet's operations.
Along with Australia, New Zealand and a host of other nations have blasted Japan's program as inhumane and dishonest.
Despite the ICJ ruling that Japan's research whaling in the Antarctic Ocean is in violation of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and ordering Japan to stop its whaling program, Japan has only gone as far as scaling down its activities in both the Antarctic and the Pacific, and continues to maintain its whaling is for scientific purposes and not for commerce.
Commercial whaling was banned in 1986 by the IWC and most former whaling nations followed the ruling with the exception of Iceland and Norway, who have lodged official objections to the ban and continue to hunt commercially, and Japan, who activists claim are hunting commercially and are exploiting the scientific research permit as a loophole.
Japan plans to kill 333 minke whales a year over the next 12 years, despite the ruling, a number believed by conservationists to still be far more than necessary for just research purposes, with the only rationale being that Japan is still hunting whales for commercial reasons.
But Japan's whaling operations, scientific or otherwise, have hit a number of obstacles of late, and while their fleets successfully killed 251 minke whales in the 2013-2014 whaling season and 103 whales the previous year, for the first time in more than 30 years the whaling fleet returned from its yearly Antarctic trip in late March without a single whale.
Observers have suggested that the reason could have been due to diminishing numbers of minke whale, although pointed out that while numbers of the species are dropping and despite at least 13 great whales being officially listed as endangered, the minke is, as yet, not officially on the endangered species list.
Nevertheless, the environmental group Sea Shepherd closely follows Japan's hunts as it believes the methods used by the hunters cause undue suffering to the whales and from a broader perspective has stated it is simply upholding international conservation laws to protect marine species and ecosystems that are endangered or at risk of becoming so.
The Sea Shepherd's direct methods of intervention on the Japanese whaling fleets have, in part, been responsible for the fleet's less successful hunts of late, including March's massive flop.
Other issues denting Japan's operations include declining demand for whale meat, more so after conservation groups revealed that previous Norwegian exports of minke whale to Japan contained potentially harmful levels of toxic pesticides, making that meat
Japan typically imports around 70 tons of minke whale meat per year, but despite a fondness for the meat by the older generations here, the meat has fallen out of favor with the younger generations, due to the whaling controversy and ever-increasing options for international cuisine.
"They catch the whales and allegedly experiment on them for science and then sell what's left of the meat to shops and restaurants," Masayuki Kobayashi, 24, a graphic designer in Tokyo previously told Xinhua. "This is not appetizing at all, I'd rather eat regular sushi as least I know it's fresh," he said.
Similarly, Keiko Endo, a 21-year old art student said she had eaten whale as a child, but didn't come across it very much these days as it was becoming increasingly unpopular among her generation.
"It's got kind of an old image, I can imagine my grandparents eating it, but if I got a text from one of my friends saying, 'Hey, let's eat whale tonight!' I'd think they were joking," she said.
"If people aren't really eating whale, then Japan should stop hunting it. I think this is common sense," Endo said.
