Australia, New Zealand and eco activists are disappointed - Japan is at whale killing again despite the International Court of Justice ruling, The Independent reports.
The Japanese Fisheries Agency said in a report that 30 minke whales had been killed during the April-June whaling season as part of its "research hunts" in the north-west Pacific Ocean.
They also said that another group of whalers were still hunting in a more remote part of the ocean.
Australia and New Zealand both hoped that the ICJ's March decision would bring the cruel practice to an end.
In March, the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) halted Japan's whaling activities in the waters around Antarctica. The ICJ ruled that Japan's scientific whaling program in the region (taking whales under the pretext of gathering data on pregnancy rates and age at first reproduction) wasn't scientific at all and could be considered a commercial operation in disguise as the meat was later sold to the market.
Japan's plan to resume whale hunt will harm both whales and people - expert
Japan has long argued that its whaling is crucial to understanding whale populations worldwide. The country also claims that it is a part of Japanese culture that is "culturally misunderstood" by the international community.
The ICJ ruled that while JARPA II could broadly be characterized as "scientific research," Japan had not sufficiently justified the whaling quotas it had set, and that they should cease the program immediately, RT writes.
Japan agreed to stop whaling in the Antarctic but the court's ruling left a loophole having banned Japan's JARPA II whaling program in the Antarctic saying nothing about its annual hunting in the Pacific.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also seems to be stepping up the whaling research program and pushing for the moratorium on commercial whaling to be lifted.
On Monday, PM Shinzo Abe said: "I want to aim for the resumption of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research in order to obtain scientific data indispensable for the management of whale resources," according to the Guardian.
Japan followed the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling - initiated by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Japan strives to resume Antarctic whaling despite ICJ ruling
Speaking earlier, New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully said: "The decision of the ICJ laid down clear guidelines for any research whaling activities in the future. As a country that places a high value on its good international citizenship, we hope and expect that Japan will continue to respect the ICJ decision." Murray McCully also described Abe's comments as "worrying" in a statement.
"While it is not clear precisely what Prime Minister Abe is proposing in the short term, the fact that he has told a Parliamentary Committee that he wants to aim towards the resumption of commercial whaling is both unfortunate and unhelpful."
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