Japan to resume whaling in Antarctic Ocean one year on from international court ruling

Japan has announced plans to resume whaling in the Antarctic Ocean after a hiatus since last year, a move likely to prompt international outrage

Whaling is set to begin again by the end of March next year.

The International Court of Justice ruled last year that Japan's decades-old whale hunt in the Antarctic should stop, prompting Tokyo to cancel the bulk of its whaling for the 2014/2015 season.

But the Japanese Fisheries Agency has notified the International Whaling Commission that Japan will resume whaling in the 2015/2016 season under a revised plan.

The plan, which calls for cutting annual minke whale catches by two-thirds to 333, is scientifically reasonable, the agency said in a document filed with the IWC.

Japan began what it calls scientific whaling in 1987, a year after an international whaling moratorium took effect.

Japan has long maintained that most whale species are not endangered and that eating whale is part of its food culture.