The United States said Thursday it was "extremely concerned" by South Korea's announcement it will kill whales and joined Australia and New Zealand in plans to raise the issue with the US ally.
South Korea on Wednesday told a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Panama that it planned to start lethal research on the ocean giants, using the same loophole in a global whaling moratorium as Japan.
"We are extremely concerned about South Korea's push to kill whales in the name of research," said Russell Smith, deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"This goes against everything the IWC stands for," he said in a statement.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said that the United States was committed to the moratorium and added: "We plan to discuss this with the South Korean government."
South Korea would be the fourth country to kill whales, excluding allowances for indigenous groups. Norway and Iceland openly defy the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, saying they believe whale stocks are healthy.
Japan says that it technically abides by the moratorium as it uses a clause that allows killing whales for scientific research, with the meat then going on dinner plates.
Australia and New Zealand have tried in vain for years to stop Japan's whaling, which partially takes place in Antarctic waters that have been declared a whale sanctuary.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key both voiced outrage over South Korea's plans and ambassadors from the two countries planned to raise concerns in Seoul.
Whale meat is popular in the South Korean coastal city of Ulsan, which serves the remains of the marine mammals said to have been accidentally caught in nets.
But South Korea's high rate of bycatch has provoked suspicion among environmental groups that at least some of the whales are killed deliberately.
US officials said that South Korea's scientific program would likely be killing so-called J-stock minke whales, whose stocks have been depleted due to bycatch.
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