The strangeness of Japan’s decision to start openly hunting whales

Each year, Japanese whalers haul hundreds of harpooned whales aboard their giant 8,145-ton vessel, the Nisshin Maru. And for decades, they’ve killed most of these whales in the open Antarctic seas, under the guise of performing scientific “research.”

But now Japan is changing course, in a curious way.

On Wednesday Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced that the nation will retreat from killing whales in the Antarctic waters. Instead, the Japanese have dropped the pretense of hunting whales for research and say they will strictly hunt whales in waters around Japan — mostly for the whales’ meat. Read more…

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