A non-binding worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling has been in effect since 1986. The ban permits a limited number of whales to be killed for scientific research. The Japanese killed more than 400 whales this year, saying the killings were conducted in the course of research gauging whale populations and migration, and despite international protest continues to carry out kills in an Antarctic whale sanctuary covering 8 million square miles. We have urged the Japanese to try to do their research by non-lethal methods. Meat from whale kills can be sold.
Whale meat is much in demand in Japan, where it is considered a delicacy.
Japanese whalers say the United States is overprotective toward whales, and accuse it of being blind to the long Japanese traditions of hunting and eating whale meat. Japan has asked the whaling commission to let it harvest 50 minke whales in the North Pacific this year to ease economic hardship in several Japanese whaling communities. While rejecting the Japanese application, the U.S. government supports a proposal by the Makah Indians of Washington's Olympic Peninsula to kill five gray whales in the Pacific. It also backs a Russian request on behalf of the far northern people of the Chukotsk region, who want to take five bowhead whales. The commission allows some coastal indigenous people to kill a few whales for subsistence, if whaling is part of their culture.