Japan whaling ships head to north Pacific

Japan plans to catch up to 90 sei whales and 25 Bryde's whales in the Pacific under its annual program that is expected to last until late July.

File image of a minke whale at the port of Kushiro in Japan's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido on Sept. 7, 2014. Source: AAP

Japanese whalers have left a port in western Japan to start hunting whales in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Japan will catch up to 90 sei whales and 25 Bryde's whales under its annual program that is expected to last until late July, the Fisheries Agency said in a statement.

Two whaling ships left Shimonoseki port on Thursday morning and the 8145-ton Nisshin Maru, the mother ship of the fleet, is scheduled to depart from a port in neighbouring Hiroshima prefecture on Friday.

In March 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled that what Japan calls research whaling in the Antarctic contravened a 1986 moratorium on whale hunting.

The court ruling prompted Japan to give up whaling in the Antarctic in the 2014 season. But it resumed the operation in December and caught 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean during a two-month hunt.

In 1987, Japan officially halted commercial whaling, complying with the international moratorium.

The country, however, has used a loophole in the charter of the International Whaling Commission to continue whaling under the premise of doing it for scientific research, critics say.