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 ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Japan said Wednesday that the International Whaling Commission should allow four of its coastal communities to hunt minke whales because the tradition is so old that it qualifies as subsistence hunting.
Japan's proposal at the annual meeting of the 77-nation commission started a long and contentious debate Wednesday, a day after the body allowed Alaska Natives to continue the subsistence hunts of bowhead whales through 2012. The issue is scheduled to be decided Thursday, the final day of the meeting.
Joji Morishita, the alternate IWC commissioner for Japan, told delegates that the Japanese communities "have been living on this tradition for hundreds of years; it is part of their lives." Morishita said science cannot draw the line between small coastal whaling and aboriginal whaling.
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