Japan pleaded with the world’s whaling watchdog Wednesday to allow small hunts by coastal communities, arguing that for three decades these groups had been unjustly barred from a traditional source of food. All whaling other than for aboriginal subsistence or for scientific research is banned under an IWC moratorium introduced 30 years ago. That’s it.”Japan seeks a quota for minke whales in the West Pacific, and argues that stock numbers can sustain small hunts. “I think that we all have to remember that those four communities in Japan that have been asking for quota, they have a 5,000-year history of whaling,” said Russia’s deputy IWC commissioner, Valentin Ilyashenko. “Commercial whaling and trade is ongoing, and Norway is a huge part of that,” she said.

Source: The Guardian October 26, 2016 14:26 UTC