some aboriginal and subsistence whaling and the harvesting of some smaller species in coastal waters. Also excluded from the moratorium was “scientific whaling,” which Japan carries out mainly in the Southern Ocean around the Antarctic.

Under its most recent research plan, Japan aimed to capture 4,000 minke whales in Antarctic waters over a twelve-year period and killed 333 during the 2016 season. Some 122 whales were killed — potentially illegally — in 2018. While there is virtually no domestic demand in Japan for the meat, until Japan pulled out of the IWC in December 2018 the purpose of the scientific whaling was to demonstrate the viability of re-starting a commercial whaling fishery. Organizations like Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have long condemned Japan's research in the Southern Ocean as afacade to catch minke whales.

Now that Japan has pledged to end its scientific whaling program, it will no longer be covered by the IWC special research permit, thus relegating their commercial whaling project to the coastal waters of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

If Japan decides to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) it will allow the IWC to pass the motion to establish the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary thus effectively ending whaling in the Southern Hemisphere. Japan will now join Norway and Iceland as rogue outlaw whaling nations in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic. The Whale Wars (sic) in the Southern Ocean will soon be over. The focus now must be the Northern Hemisphere.

Meanwhile, the governments of Australia and New Zealand opposed Japan's decision to