Fin whales aren’t doing so well, population-wise. They’re on the list of animals classified as “vulnerable to extinction,” but despite that, Japan has added them to the list of whales permitted to be hunted by Japanese commercial whalers.

On May 9, the Japanese government made the announcement. The backlash was immediate and fierce. “This is an appalling step backwards,” the Environmental Investigation Agency’s (EIA) Senior Ocean Adviser Clare Perry said, “and the latest desperate effort by the Government of Japan to stimulate an almost non-existent consumer demand for whale meat in Japan, in order to justify having built a new whale-killing factory ship, at taxpayers’ expense, which could tie Japan into decades more of this destructive, unsustainable, inhumane and outdated industry.”

The fin whale’s addition to Japan’s list of commercial whaling species is the fourth, with minke whales, Bryde’s whales, and sei whales also allowed to be hunted.

Forgetting the fact that whaling is, as the EIA put it, a “destructive, unsustainable, inhumane and outdated industry,” fin whales are a particularly strange addition to the list. They’re the second largest animal on the planet — second to the blue whale — and although they have enjoyed a population boom over the last 50-or-so years, they’re still listed as “vulnerable” by the IUCN.

The booming population was due in large part to bans on commercial whaling around the globe. “Fin whales are one of Earth’s great carbon capturers and should be fully protected,” Perry continued, “not least so that they can continue to fulfill their critical role in the marine environment.”

A few years ago, Japan began commercial whaling again after withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission, which regulates whaling around the world. Japan is one of just a few countries that defy the ban. Norway, Denmark/Greenland, Russia, and Iceland still practice it, mostly under the shield of scientific research.

“Japan now proposes to kill the second largest animal on the planet,” Perry said, “despite the global ban on commercial whaling and the nation’s legal duty to cooperate with the IWC, mandated by customary international law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

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