Right: A grave erected in Nagato, Japan, for foetuses taken from harpooned whales. This is part of a longstanding Japanese tradition of memorialising hunted whales.
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Background information
The information below has been abbreviated from a Wikipedia entry titled 'Whaling in Japan'. The full text can be accessed at
History of Japanese whaling
Japanese whaling, in terms of active hunting of these marine mammals, is estimated by the Japan Whaling Association to have begun around the 12th century. However, Japanese whaling on an industrial scale began around the 1890s when Japan began to participate in the modern whaling industry, at that time an industry in which many countries took part. Japanese whaling activities have historically extended far outside Japanese territorial waters.
Japanese whaling in the 20th century
During the 20th century, Japan was heavily involved in commercial whaling. During the Second World War, Japan's whaling was significantly limited to more familiar hunting grounds, such as the Bonin Islands, to provide meat and oil for domestic and military use. Whaling there was halted in March 1945 when the islands were taken by United States forces. By November 1945 the whaling stations received permission to reopen; however, most whaling ships had been commandeered by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and by the end of the war the factory ships and most of the whale catchers had been sunk.
General Douglas MacArthur encouraged the surrendered Japan to continue whaling in order to provide a cheap source of meat to starving people. The Japanese whaling industry quickly recovered as MacArthur authorized two tankers to be converted into factory ships, the Hashidate Maru and the Nisshin Maru. Whale catchers once again took blue whales, fins, humpbacks and sperm whales in the Antarctic and elsewhere.
The post-war recovery established whale meat as a nationwide food source for the first time. In 1947 whale meat made up over 50 percent of the meat consumed in Japan. The market significantly increased through commercial sale and public distribution. In 1954, the School Lunch Act also included whale meat in compulsory education (elementary and middle school) to improve the nutrition of Japanese children. Post-war economic recovery and then boom saw whale meat form a progressively less significant portion of the average Japanese diet; however, the Japanese whaling industry continued until the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986.
Japanese whaling after the International Whaling Commission moratorium
Japan continued to hunt whales using the scientific research provision in the agreement, and Japanese whaling is currently conducted by the Institute of Cetacean Research. This was allowed under IWC rules, although most IWC members oppose it. However, in March 2014 the UN's International Court of Justice ruled that the Japanese whaling program, called "JARPA II", in the Southern Ocean, including inside the Australian Whale Sanctuary, was not in accordance with the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and was not for scientific purposes, as it had claimed.
In December 2015, Japan went ahead with their whaling program, renamed 'NEWREP-A'. Their objective was to hunt 3,000 Antarctic minke whales over 10 years, starting with 330 whales during the 2015-16 season. Antarctic minke exist in substantial numbers and have never been classified as 'threatened', though the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has warned that it lacks sufficient data to be sure of the whales' status.
In December 2018, Japan announced that it will resume commercial whale hunts in July 2019 within its territorial waters and commercial zones.
International conflict
Japan's scientific hunts have been a source of conflict between pro- and anti-whaling countries and organizations. The UN's International Court of Justice, in addition to other countries, scientists, and environmental organizations considered the Japanese research program to be unnecessary and lacking scientific merit, and described it as a thinly disguised commercial whaling operation.
Japan has maintained that annual whaling is sustainable and necessary for scientific study and management of whale stocks. Japan, echoing Norway's arguments on its own whaling activities, also argues it is entitled to continue whaling because of whaling's place in its cultural heritage. The whale meat from these hunts is sold in shops and restaurants, and is showcased at an annual food festival.