Japan has allotted funds, which are much needed by victims of last year’s earthquake, for its controversial whaling program, environmental groups said.
Greenpeace said this week that Japan will use $30 million to increase security for Antarctic whaling ships that will likely battle with environmental groups, which have attempted to disrupt Japan’s whaling.
“Not only is the whaling industry unable to survive without large increases in government handouts, now it’s siphoning money away from the victims of the March 11 triple disaster,” Junichi Sato, head of Greenpeace Japan, said in a statement.
Japan catches around 1,000 whales each year despite an international ban on hunting the marine mammals. In its defense, Japan says that the whales are used for scientific research, which critics say is just a ploy to hunt the animals for whale meat.
The environmental activist group Sea Shepherd said Japan is using money donated to earthquake victims for whaling, a claim that the Japanese Consulate in Australia said is untrue, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Wednesday.
Last year activists aboard the Sea Shepherd ship, hurled paint and stink bombs at Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic as well as ensnared the vessels’ propellers. Japan stopped the hunt early after killing around killing 170 whales.
