Japan's New Whaling Limit Is Still More Than It Kills in a Year

​Japan has lowered its annual whale hunt quota ​from 1,035 to 333 whales in an attempt to appease ​a United Nations high court ruling. The thing is, the new quota doesn't actually curb the number of whales Japan slaughters each year.

This March, the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Japan's Antarctic whaling program must cease because the guidelines the country issued do not sufficiently limit the hunt to research.

There is a global blanket ban on whaling, with exceptions made only for traditional hunts for specific cultural groups and for scientific research. For decades, Japan has managed to support ​what its own Prime Minister identifies as a commercial whaling industry under the banner of science. But many people, including ​the ICJ, the ​government of Australia, and the vigilante sea conservation group ​Sea Shepherd, aren't convinced the whales are being killed in the name of science.

In response to the ICJ's ruling, Japan has released a new, lower quote in an attempt to verify its pure intentions. The country also pledged to only hunt minke whales and stop killing humpbacks and endangered fin whales.

But here's the kicker: Japan's new quota is still higher than the number of whales it's collected in the last few years. According to the ​International Whaling Commission, Japan killed 252 minke whales in the Antarctic last year. Japan's fleet could kill 30 percent more whales than last year and still fall within its "lowered" quota.

In the past, Japan has killed many more whales, slaughtering 856 minkes in the Antarctic in 2005. Sea Shepherd had a powerful impact on the lowered numbers by stationing in the Antarctic and driving the whaling fleet out, but there's still a lot of whales dying. And the industry is stubbornly propped up by ​government subsidies even as eating whale meat has ​waned in popularity in Japanese culture.

Japan has handed over its new guideline proposals to the International Whaling Commission, which will decide whether or not to approve it sometime next year. Despite the increasing pressure on the country to end its whaling entirely, Japan still has legal permits to hunt whales in the North Pacific. Last year, that fleet culled 132 whales in that area, and it will surely return this year, killing scores more whales to keep its market afloat.