Japan resumes commercial whaling after 3-decade hiatus

Japanese whaling fleets set sail Monday to hunt whales for commercial purposes for the first time in 31 years, catching two whales, a day after Tokyo formally left the International Whaling Commission.As an IWC member, Japan halted commercial whaling in 1988 but hunted whales for what it claims were research purposes, a practice criticized internationally as a cover for commercial whaling.On Monday morning, the Nisshin Maru, a whale factory ship belonging to Kyodo Senpaku Co., and two other whalers left the port of Shimonoseki in the western Japan prefecture of Yamaguchi to hunt minke, sei …READ FULL ARTICLE