Japan has decided to resume whaling in the Antarctic Ocean by the end of March after a hiatus since last year, a move likely to prompt international outrage. The International Court of Justice ruled in March last year that Japan’s decades-old whale hunt in the Antarctic should stop, prompting Tokyo to cancel the bulk of its whaling for the 2014/2015 season, Reuters reported. The Japanese Fisheries Agency on Friday notified the International Whaling Commission that Japan will resume whaling in the 2015/2016 season under a revised plan. The plan, which calls for cutting annual minke whale catches by two-thirds to 333, is scientifically reasonable, the agency said in a document filed with the IWC. Japan began what it calls scientific whaling in 1987, a year after an international whaling moratorium took effect. Japan has long maintained that most whale species are not endangered and that eating whale is part of its food culture.
