Japan to double its take of minke whales for study

ULSAN, South Korea — Japan said yesterday it would dramatically expand its research whaling, doubling the number of minke whales it kills annually for scientific study.

The announcement came on the opening day of the International Whaling Commission's annual plenary session, which also saw Japan and its pro-whaling allies lose a pair of early procedural votes considered a barometer for measuring the balance of forces in the group that regulates global whale hunts.

Japan said it would begin culling as many as 935 minke whales annually — up from 440 this year — in a new program beginning later this year. The decision, an extension of the scientific research whaling Japan began in 1987, was expected.

The Cambridge, England-based commission, which has 66 members, banned commercial hunts in 1986, handing environmentalists a major victory in protecting species that were near extinction after centuries of whaling.

Norway holds the world's only commercial-whaling season in defiance of the ban, which IWC members are free to reject. Japan says it kills whales to study them before selling the meat, also allowed under commission rules, but which critics say amounts to commercial whaling in disguise.