Japan’s controversial plan involves the annual slaughter of more than 300 minke whales.
Japan says its whale hunting is performed in the name of science -- a claim that was rejected overnight by an independent panel of International Whaling Commission experts.
"The current proposal does not demonstrate the need for lethal sampling to achieve those objectives,” the panel found.
In response Japan's International Whaling Commissioner Mr Joji Morishita told a press conference in Tokyo the finding lacks clarity.
“They haven't unilaterally said that it's not good, neither have they come out on the other side with 'go ahead, do whatever research you want to do'. It's a very IWC thing to do,” Mr Morishita said.
Japan submitted the proposal for a "scaled-back" hunt, but opponents like Sharon Livermore from the International Fund For Animal Welfare say it's still excessive.
“Over the next four years they plan to kill 4,000 whales and that's 333 whales every year on top of the 10,000 they've already killed,” she said.
In March 2014, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ordered the suspension of Japan's much-criticised research whaling in the Southern Ocean, ruling that it contravenes a 1986 moratorium on whale hunting.
The ruling led Japan to suspend its whaling program for the financial year to March, and draw up a new plan for the following one.
The changes include a revised target catch of up to 333 minke whales a year, down from the previous target of 935.
Japan officially stopped commercial whaling in 1987 but has conducted "research whaling" ever since under what critics argue is a loophole in the IWC charter.
Critics have accused Tokyo of conducting its annual hunt for commercial purposes.
-With AAP
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