It resumed hunting in 1993, despite protests by many other nations and anti-whaling groups. Bryn and most of his delegation walked out, leaving a delegate to vote against the resolution, which passed 18 votes to nine. Norway does not kill whales at its 1970s level of about 1,800 a year, but takes several hundred minke whales annually. Japan, too, objects to the moratorium and kills several hundred whales each year under a provision that allows a limited kill for scientific research. The commission called on Japan to stop hunting in an Antarctic whale sanctuary.
Japan persists, despite repeated international protests.
The commission also passed a resolution against a Canadian plan to permit the indigenous Nunavut people in the Northwest Territories kill one bowhead whale. Canada, which withdrew from the commission in 1982, had an observer at the conference who objected to the resolution, saying the aboriginal peoples of Canada have a right to harvest marine mammals.