On 5 April, a fleet of vessels left the port of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture in Japan to undertake what the government describes as ‘research’ whaling. The ships will search an area of the Pacific within a 90km radius of the port with the aim of capturing minke whales, in order to analyze stomach contents and use the data gathered to ‘manage’ marine resources in the area.
The Association for Community-Based Whaling has said the activity is aimed at collecting scientific data to potentially enable the country to resume commercial whaling, which they were forced to halt in 1986. Since then, however, Japan has continued to kill whales under the guise of ‘research’, and later in spring and early autumn will capture/kill up to 80 minke whales as part of their ‘research programme’.
