
Japan to leave International Whaling Commission, resume commercial hunting - SirLJ
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-to-leave-international-whaling-commission-resume-commercial-hunt/2018/12/26/2c32fb20-08c9-11e9-892d-3373d7422f60_story.html
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DrPhish
The article itself is really quite good, but for those who come to the
comments to find out what this is all about, here is an attempt at a
dispassionate summary on an emotionally charged subject:

It's been a fight between those who were seeking to create a sustainable
whaling industry, and those who wanted to end the practice completely. As
written in the article, the IWC was founded in order to be the former, and
brought (largely by global consensus) to become the latter.

After the disaster that was the historical whaling industry, Japan tried to
move back to commercial whaling within a framework of scientific consensus
based on population levels and a sustainable catch limit, but was blocked by
the wider international community.

It has been obvious for years that it would come to this. The two groups are
at loggerheads. It's the natural outcome of two different opinions on the
ethical standing of whaling as a practice.

In one way, we are lucky that it is Japan that is resuming whaling (joining
Norway and Iceland), since they will probably do a decent job of policing
their domestic whaling industry, but of course it is unfortunate that a global
consensus could not be reached over either acceptable limits or a permanent
end to the practice

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sytelus
TLDR;

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s constituency includes the whaling port of
Shimonoseki, and he has also come under pressure from lawmakers in his Liberal
Democratic Party whose electoral districts include whaling or dolphin-hunting
communities.

As a move from environment loving developed nation, this is quite repulsive.

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SamReidHughes
The whales that don't get whaled will get starved, sharked, or killer whaled.

