Associated Press
Violent clashes with animal rights groups combined with fewer whale sightings forced Japan's whaling fleet to head home from Antarctic waters with only 55 percent of its hunting target, the Japanese government said Monday.
Starting tomorrow whalers are to return with 551 minke whales—far less than the original plan to kill up to 935 minkes and 50 fin whales.
Anti-whaling activists had chased whaling ships for much of this season's hunt, blocking their paths and pelting boats with containers of rancid butter, slightly injuring several crew members.
In January two activists from the group Sea Shepherd jumped onto one of the Japanese ships and spent several days in detention on board.
Japanese whalers hunt under an internationally permitted research exemption to the 1986 ban on commercial whaling.
In a statement issued today Japan's fisheries agency said that this season "we did not have enough time for research, because we had to avoid sabotage," referring to the protesters.
Japanese officials also said the fleet spotted fewer minke whales than they had in the same area two years ago. Officials, however, stopped short of concluding there were fewer whales.
"We have to wait for a scientific analysis to determine whether the number is in decline or not," said Shigeki Takaya, a fisheries agency official in charge of whaling.
Research, or Commerce?
Anti-whaling activists cheered the results of their efforts to block the hunt.
But Junichi Sato, whaling project leader for the environmental group Greenpeace, said even the reduced hunt killed too many whales.
"It is still above the 400 or so they caught about three years ago," he said. "So it's a lot compared with several years ago."
