Japan is trying to obtain international support for its plans to hunt minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean in 2015 by cutting down the whaling research program the UN top court rejected earlier this year, according to AFP.
Whaling for research purposes is exempt from the 1986 ban on commercial whaling, and Japan has hunted in the Antarctic and Pacific on that basis. Back in March the International Court of Justice decided that the Antarctic program wasn't scientific as Japan had claimed and must stop.
Japan's Fishery Agency is currently working on a revised program to submit to the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee around November, according to AFP.
The agency will announce its basic plan and intention at the IWC meeting in Slovenia set to be held Sept. 15 to 18. It will continue to finalize catch targets and additional details this fall.
"Collecting the necessary data requires lethal research, which was acknowledged in the ICJ ruling," the agency official said, according to AFP. "We've yet to decide on the number of catch next year. We plan to submit the new plan to the IWC's scientific committee for approval in October or November."
The program is expected to address the issues cited by the court, an agency official said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.
Whaling vessels will collect "data necessary to calculate the number of whale catch allowed (once commercial whaling resumes)," and "construct a model of the Antarctic Ocean ecosystem," an official of the Japan Fisheries Agency said to AFP.
"We are thinking that we will only target Antarctic minke whales in the new plan," he added.
Researchers believe more minke whales can be found than fin and humpback whales, which have also been harpooned in past missions.
Past Antarctic expeditions have set a quota of 935 minkes, according to AFP. Lower quotas were set for fin and humpback whales. Japan plans to no longer hunt fin and humpback whales, after barely catching any of those two species since 2005.
A campaign of harassment by environmental group Sea Shepard drastically reduced the quota however.
Japan also hunts more than 160 whales along its coast, outside of the IWC oversight.
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