Japan cuts whaling targets after U.N. ruling

Japan said Friday it will scale down the number of whales it targets during a Pacific Ocean hunt slated for next week, as well as limit next season's Antarctic whaling to observation, after a United Nations court said Tokyo's whaling in the Southern Ocean was a commercial activity disguised as science.

Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said that the Pacific catch target was being slashed to about 210 whales from the current 380. The annual spring hunt takes place along Japan's northern coast.

Japan has exploited a loophole in a 1986 moratorium that allowed it to conduct lethal research on the mammals, but has openly admitted that whale meat makes its way onto dinner tables.

"Japan’s whaling is purely for the purposes of obtaining scientific data, so that whale resources can be sustainably maintained," a Japanese official told Agence France-Presse.

However, environmentalists believe Japan’s whaling is purely a commercial endeavor. They hailed last month's ruling by the U.N.'s International Court of Justice though it did not challenge Japan's whaling program in the northern Pacific.

Following the ruling, Pete Bethune, founder of the New Zealand-based marine conversation group Earthrace Conservation, said: "I am absolutely thrilled. Today will go down in history as a great day for whales, for conservation and for justice." 

Hayashi has pledged to comply with the ruling.

"We will carry out extensive studies in cooperation with ministries concerned to submit a new research program by this autumn to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), reflecting the criteria laid out in the verdict," he said.

A company engaged in traditional coastal whaling in northern Japan, which also takes part in the hunts reported to be for research, welcomed the news.

"If the research program is discontinued, our company will no doubt go bankrupt this year," said Minoru Ito, president of Ayukawa Hogei, in the tsunami-hit city of Ishinomaki.

The company has been catching Baird's beaked whales, a species not covered by the moratorium, in coastal waters since the ban was imposed.

The ban has threatened to choke the port of Ayukawa which has depended on whaling since the mid-19th century.

It has also taken part in the research program to hunt Minke whale.

"We can survive if the program continues while we are recovering from the (2011 tsunami) disaster with borrowed money and government help," Ito said.

Media had speculated that the start of the next Pacific hunt would be delayed from April 22 to 26 to avoid a clash with a visit by President Barack Obama.

Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun said the delay appeared to be an effort to avoid overshadowing the visit with an activity widely denigrated in the West.

The U.S. is a major voice in the IWC against hunting, but is also Tokyo's chief ally in the global community.

Japan killed 251 minke whales during the last Antarctic hunt, according to government figures released last week, while last year's operation in the Pacific netted 58 minke whales in coastal waters and 132 mammals — including minke, sei and sperm whales — offshore.

Al Jazeera and wire services