JAPAN has started its third season of whaling in its coastal waters, with four vessels leaving port on Saturday.
The country's Fisheries Agency said a fifth boat will join the fleet in June and together, they are expected to catch some 120 minke whales in waters off the Sanriku Coast and Hokkaido by late October.
The Japanese coastal waters whaling resumed in 2019, after ending an over-three-decade hiatus on commercial whaling.
According to a Kyodo News report, two boats left Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, early Saturday morning before being joined by two other vessels that departed from Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture.
The fifth boat will leave from Abashiri, Hokkaido.
"We would like to provide fresh and delicious whales for everyone who is waiting," said Nobuyuki Ito, president of a whaling company in Ishinomaki.
Ito's company is planning to catch whales in the coastal waters of Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures until early June before heading north to the coastal waters of Hokkaido.
The two vessels which left Hachinohe are operated by companies in Minamiboso, Chiba Prefecture, and the town of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture.
The Fisheries Agency also said that commercial whaling in offshore waters was scheduled to start around June.
Japan resumed hunting whales for commercial purposes on July 1, 2019, a day after formally leaving the International Whaling Commission.
As an IWC member, Japan had halted commercial whaling in 1988 but continued catching whales for what it called research purposes, a practice criticised internationally as a cover for commercial whaling.