Publication Name
TIME
Author(s)
Krista Mahr
The annual kerfuffle between Japanese whaling ships and the anti-whaling activists who chase them around Antarctic waters every winter is once again getting its seasonal share of ink and airtime. But this year the familiar scenes from the southerly tug-of-war might have a new victor – for now.
For the last several winters, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has chased around the whaling fleet Tokyo sends down to Antarctica to continue Japan's annual whale hunt. Though there has been a global moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986, Japan continues to hunt whales in a loophole in the laws that permits whaling for scientific purposes. The scuffles between the Sea Shepherd activists trying to put a stop to this hunt and the Japanese fleet have been documented from the organization's perspective in the sensationalist Whale Wars series on Animal Planet. Usually, the battle ends with the end of Japan's hunt, and the activists vow to try again next year.
Read the full article, The Beginning of an End to Whaling in Japan?, on TIME's website.