A Japanese whaling fleet has returned to port after killing more than 300 of the animals in its annual Antarctic hunt.
Three of the five-ship fleet, flouting a global moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand, arrived on Friday morning at Shimonoseki port in Western Japan.
According to Shimonoseki city government officials, more than 200 people, including crew members and their families, gathered for a 30-minute ceremony.
The country’s Fisheries Agency described the mission as “research for the purpose of studying the ecological system in the Antarctic sea.”
But environmentalists and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) say the purpose is to hunt whales for their meat.
Anticipating the fleet’s return, animal protection charity Humane Society International called for an end to Japanese whaling.
The group’s executive vice-president Kitty Block said: “Each year that Japan persists with its discredited scientific whaling is another year where these wonderful animals are needlessly sacrificed.
“It is an obscene cruelty in the name of science that must end.”
Japan last year also caught 333 minke whales following a one-year hiatus prompted by an ICJ ruling.
The ruling stated that the hunt was a commercial venture masquerading as science and ordered Tokyo to end it.
Since 1986 there has been a moratorium on hunting whales Under the International Whaling Commission, to which Japan is a signatory.
Tokyo exploits a loophole allowing whales to be killed for “scientific research”, claiming it is trying to prove the population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting.
But it makes no secret of the fact its whale meat ends up on dinner tables and is even served for lunch in schools.
