Japan’s Antarctic Whale Hunting Reduces Quota After UN Court Ruling

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Nov 19, 2014 07:46 PM EST

The Japanese government released their 12-year program to slaughter 3,996 whales in the Southern Ocean, but it experienced a legal setback initiated by Australia on Tuesday, the Guardian reported.

As a response to international criticism over whale-hunting practice, Japan reduces its quota from 999 down to 333, according to TIME.

The negative order by UN's International Court of Justice in March, brought by Australia and New Zealand, resulted in suspension of this annual whale hunt.

The court said the questionable project which sees citizen financed Japanese vessels harpooning the colossal vertebrates and after that offering on their meat, evidently as an issue item, was a business chase taking on the appearance of examination, according to Discovery News.

The court adds that any nation who desire a scientific reprieve should justify the necessity of killing whales in order to accomplish a research.

Japan, however, committed to draft a new plan by the end of 2015, despite a non-binding vote in September at an International Whaling Commission meeting; even with strict limits on their whaling activities, the Guardian reported.

Koya Nishikawa, the minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said that they " will explain the new plan sincerely so as to gain understanding from each country."

Greg Hunt, Australia's environment minister said that "All information necessary for the contemporary conservation and management of whales can be obtained non-lethally."

Darren Kindleysides, the director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society said that it is possible to collect all information needed from whales using non-lethal method and ICJ suggest that Japan should consider such means.

"This new plan was just a 'repackaging' of the previous JARPA II, the official name of the Japanese whaling program," he added.

Japan's "research whaling" is headed to be "dead on arrival when it arrives at the IWC scientific committee next year," said Patrick Ramage, of the global Whale Programme Director from the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

The Worldwide Whaling Commission, world's whaling caretaker, affirmed to fortify examination of Atlantic chases yet rejects an offer to amplify insurance in the South Atlantic. They Think that it's challenging to adjust conservation with conventional chasing.

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