Fishermen in remote Pacific port plan to depart for hunt on Monday, despite global outcry

On Monday morning, after a short ceremony to pray for a bountiful catch and safety at sea, five ships will slip out of a port in northern Japan to hunt whales for profit for the first time in more than 30 years.

They will not head to the southern ocean, the controversial hunting ground for Japan’s “scientific” whaling programme since the late 1980s, but to coastal waters, six months after the country announced it would leave the International Whaling Commission [IWC] on 30 June.

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