Japan’s move is bad news for whales within its waters, but spells the end of high seas whaling, says Matthew Collis
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Alamy Stock Photo
As 2018 drew to a close, Japan used the cover of the holiday season to confirm that it will quit the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and “resume” commercial whaling.
Of course, Japan has never really stopped. Since a ban on the practice came into force in 1986, Japan continued supplying its whale meat market under the guise of “scientific” whaling, slaughtering more than 15,000 animals in the intervening years.
This supposed research has been repeatedly discredited, both by scientific panels set …