Tokyo: Japan will resume "research" whaling in the Antarctic by the end of March next year, local media  reported today, despite a call by global regulators for more evidence that the expeditions have a scientific purpose.  

The move came after a one-season suspension of its hunting in the ocean as the United Nations' top legal body judged last year that Japan's whaling there was a fig leaf for a commercial hunt.
 
Japan's fisheries agency has since told the International Whaling Commission that it would resume whaling in the Antarctic Ocean by cutting annual minke whale catches by two-thirds to 333 this season.  

But the IWC's scientific committee said in June that Japan had failed to give enough detail to explain why it wanted to kill almost 4,000 minke whales in the Antarctic over the next 12 years.
 
Japan's agency decided on Friday however to go ahead with the plan, claiming that it was scientifically adequate and no change was needed, Kyodo News said.  The Yomiuri Shimbun and other media said Japanese whalers  were expected to depart for the ocean possibly by the end   of December.
 
There was no immediate comment from the agency.
 
Despite international disapproval, Japan has hunted whales in the Southern Ocean under an exemption in the global whaling moratorium that allows for lethal research.