Japan suspends hunting of humpback whales

Japan is dropping its plan to kill humpback whales in the seas off Antarctica, a media report said today.

Japan has decided to suspend humpback whaling while talks to reform the International Whaling Commission are underway, Kyodo News agency quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura as saying.

Tokyo will maintain its other research whaling activities in the meantime, Machimura added, according to Kyodo.

Japan dispatched its whaling fleet last month to the southern Pacific in the first major hunt of humpback whales since the 1960s, generating widespread criticism.

Commercial hunts of humpbacks have been banned worldwide since 1966.

This morning Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters he hoped to discuss the whale hunt and related issues with his Australian counterpart soon.

“Given that in a sense this seems to be a problem of differences in national sentiment between Japanese and Australian culture, it’s not a matter that can be solved by appealing to one another through logic,” Komura told reporters. “I hope to discuss possible measures with the Australian foreign minister soon.”

Australia announced this week it was launching a new push to stop Japan’s annual whale hunt, including sending surveillance planes and a ship to gather evidence for a possible international legal challenge.

On Wednesday, Thomas Schieffer, the US ambassador to Japan, said a deal may have been struck to suspend Japan’s plans to hunt 50 humpback whales in Antarctic waters.

The mission also aims to take as many as 935 minke whales and up to 50 fin whales in what Japan's Fisheries Agency says is its largest-ever scientific whale hunt.

Critics say the programme is a shield for Japan to keep its whaling industry alive until it can overturn a 1986 ban on commercial whaling.