On Tuesday, Japan's whaling fleet is set to resume sailing for the Antarctic ocean to hunt again after a one year hiatus. This move has been criticized heavily by the United States and Australia.

To date, Japan has set its sights on more than 300 whales before hunting ends next year with some 4,000 whales in the next 12 years, claiming to be part of a scientific program involving whale research. Last year, the International Court of Justice already ruled to stop this Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. Apart from this, a panel from the International Whaling Commission declared in April that Japan needs to prove their need for killing whales.

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However, Tokyo restructured its plan for the 2015 to 2016 season to cut down the number of minke whales down to 333 which is two thirds the number from prior Japanese whale hunting. According to Shimonoseki city mayor Tomoaki Nakao, last year the ICJ apparently made this ruling and we were unable to get those whales. Shimonoseki is home to this whale fleet and also a crucial part of the election vote of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Nakao said to the crew during a fleet ceremony, there is nothing as happy as this day, before departure. Before noon, the ships sailed away as family members and local officials waved goodbye from the shore, where the hunt is expected to span until March 2016.

Japan claims that most whale species are not endangered and eating whales is part of their food culture. They began this scientific whaling in 1987 which is one year after an international whaling moratorium became effective. After this scientific whaling hunt, the meat are sold to stores even if most Japanese no longer consume it. 

Prime Minister Abe declared that their ultimate goal is to resume commercial whaling, in which he repeated this in a message during the fleet ceremony.

Many environmental activists condemn this move including Australia and key ally United States, that are opposed to whale hunting. According to US Commissioner of the International Whaling Commission, Russell Smith, Japan's scientific research objectives can be approached with non deadly means, as these scientific whaling programs of theirs clearly oppose this moratorium.

According to Greenpeace Japan's executive director, Junichi Sato, this is completely unacceptable for the Japanese government to ignore the ruling of the International Court of Justice, adding that, this is commercial whaling and not scientific research.

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