Apr. 22  06:00 am JST  15 CommentsSHIMONOSEKI

A commercial whaling ship left a western Japanese port Monday for the Sea of Okhotsk to hunt 25 fin whales.

The crew of the ship, which left Shimonoseki port, plans to start hunting fin whales in the exclusive economic zone, north of the northern island of Hokkaido, from Friday and is set to return to port in Sendai in northeastern Japan in June.

Four such trips are planned in fiscal 2025 through next March, and the crew hope to catch a total of 229 fin and other whales, one less than the number caught the previous fiscal year.

Japan resumed hunting whales for commercial purposes in 2019 after formally withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission.

As an IWC member, Japan had halted commercial whaling in 1988 but continued to hunt whales for what it called research purposes, a practice criticized internationally as a cover for commercial whaling.