EMOTION, according to the Japanese government, should play no part in decisions about commercial whaling.
But critics say the hunt is commercial whaling in another guise and has no scientific value.
Iceland is already under fire from the conservation lobby over its recent decision to resume commercial whaling.
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The Southern Ocean Sanctuary was set aside in 1994 as an area where commercial whaling is prohibited.
Japan and Norway, who continue to bypass the moratorium on commercial whaling , won their battle to prevent a whale sanctuary being created in breeding grounds in the Pacific.
Populations of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) were seriously depleted by commercial whaling but have been protected in most areas for the last 50 years, and most populations are growing.
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Australia's commissioner Donna Petrochenko, for example, was as forthright as her populace would demand in declaring that "Australia is resolutely opposed to commercial whaling in any form" and "strongly supports the moratorium".
Rapacious and uncontrolled commercial whaling (most notably by Britain and America in the 18th and 19th centuries) did indeed drive many species, such as the right whale and the sperm whale, close to extinction.
There has been an international ban on commercial whaling for 25 years, but Japan sends its fleet to the Antarctic in the autumn or winter each year, returning the following spring, with the aim of catching hundreds of whales.
In reality, pollution, merchant shipping and commercial fishing all pose far greater threats to the world's whale populations than any likely commercial-whaling industry might.
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