On July 1, Japan resumed commercial whaling. A fishing boat unloaded a minke whale at Kushiro port, Hokkaido.
On July 1, after a lapse of 31 years, Japan resumed commercial whaling. The whaling fleet set off from the port of Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi Prefecture and started fishing activities for several months. On October 4, rixinmaru, the mother whaling ship responsible for offshore operations, returned to Xiaguan port. Its fleet composed of two whaling ships captured about 1430 tons of whale meat.
According to Kyodo News Agency reported on the 4th, the joint shipping company in charge of operation said that about 370 tons of whale meat of the fleet had been unloaded at Sendai port at the end of July. The remaining whale meat of "Rixin pill" is expected to be unloaded after the 5th and circulated in the market within the year. The two whaling ships returned to Tokyo port and Shimonoseki port on the 3rd.
The whaling fleet mainly operated in the territorial sea and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) from the coastal waters of Aichi county to the coastal waters of Kushiro, Hokkaido, and captured a total of 187 Brinell whales, 25 plug whales and 11 minke whales, a total of 223.
"Unlike scientific whaling, (commercial whaling) wants to capture and sell efficiently," said Sen yingsi, President of the joint shipping company He revealed that the next commercial whaling plan is to go to sea in March next year.
On June 30 this year, Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which prohibits commercial whaling, and announced the fishing quota the next day. Among them, the fishing quota from July 1 to the end of December was 227. The fishing scope was limited to Japan's territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, and the whaling fleet immediately left the port to carry out fishing activities.
According to Japan Economic News reported on the 4th, the latest batch of whale meat will be listed in November and sold all over Japan. Mori yingsi stressed that the sea once again confirmed the abundance of whale meat resources. Yamamura and husband, President of the Japan whaling Association, also said at the end of August that the whaling was "smoother than expected".
Due to the cessation of the survey whaling and the restrictions on the sea area, the whale meat captured by the Japanese commercial fleet this time is only about 60% of that during the survey whaling period. From the end of 2018 to the spring of 2019, Japan captured 333 Antarctic minke whales in Antarctic waters.
However, in recent years, the scale of whale meat consumption in Japan has been shrinking, and the prospect of restarting commercial whaling is not clear. According to the official data reported by Xinhua news agency in July, the annual consumption of whale meat in Japan has decreased from about 200000 tons in the 1960s to about 5000 tons in recent years, and whale meat accounted for only 0.1% of Japan's national meat consumption in 2016.