Skip to content
All news
  • All news
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Corporates
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Scottish Dolphin Centre
  • Stop whaling
  • Stranding
  • Whale watching
Gray whale

UN adopts High Seas Treaty to protect the ocean

At the UN 'High Seas Treaty' negotiations in New York, a historic vote for the...

Hopes raised for whale and dolphin protection after last minute landmark nature agreement

WDC's Ed Goodall (far right) at COP15 with Thérèse Coffey (centre) UK Secretary of State...

WDC orca champion picks up award

Beatrice Whishart MSP picks up her Nature Champion award The Scottish Environment LINK, an organisation...

Large number of dolphins moved to Abu Dhabi marine park

Up to 24 captive bottlenose dolphins have reportedly been sent to a new SeaWorld theme...

Japanese plans to build new whale hunting ship attracts widespread criticism

The Japanese Fisheries Agency has reiterated plans to begin the process of building a new whale hunting vessel in 2018 to lead its whaling fleet in the future, a controversial move that is likely to attract widespread international criticism.

The new ship will replace the Nisshin Maru, the 8,145-ton mother ship of the whaling fleet in the Antarctic and Pacific oceans, and its construction is seen a clear statement by Japanese authorities that it will continue hunting.

The fleets smaller vessels normally kill the whales, with the carcasses then pulled onto the mother ship to be butchered. Up to 1,200 tons of whale meat can be held below deck on the Nisshin Maru, however many of the parts of the vessel are over 30 years old now and need replacing. Plans to relace the Nishin Maru in 2005 had to be shelved after protests from conservation groups led to the shipbuilding company’s withdrawal from the project.

The Japanese whaling fleet left port for Antarctica in November to kill up to 333 Antarctic minke whales by next March for ongoing ‘research’.  Japan uses the term scientific research to get around the current IWC (the organisation that regulates whale hunts) ban on commercial whaling, yet much of the whale meat from these ‘scientific’ hunts actually ends up on general sale in Japan.

“Many countries distrust Japan, which continues to kill whales in the name of research using massive subsidies,” said Nanami Kurasawa, secretary general of the civic group Iruka and Kujira (Dolphin and Whale) Action Network. “The renewal of the mother ship would attract heavy criticism.”

Last year, Japanese whalers  killed over 300 minke whales in the 2015/16 Antarctic hunting season with over 90% of the adult females being pregnant.  

Donate to help us end whaling.