The whaling fleet is scheduled to put to sea in a matter of days and has set a target
of 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales, according to Shigeki Takaya, a spokesman for
the Ministry of Agriculture’s Far Seas Fisheries Division.

Last year, Tokyo announced that it would also take 50 humpbacks for the first time
since the sixties, provoking outrage from anti-whaling nations. That plan was dropped
and plans to hunt the species this year have again been cancelled.

“We received a lot of pressure from around the world, but particularly Australia
and New Zealand, so we will not be catching humpbacks as part of the research (more…)