Japanese vessels have finished 10 weeks of "research whaling" in the northwestern Pacific, taking catches of 90 sei whales and 25 Bryde's whales as planned, the Fisheries Agency said Monday.
The government agency claims that the activity, which started June 11, is aimed at contributing to resource management by analyzing such things as the contents of their stomachs and other organs.
After the International Court of Justice ruled in March last year that Japan's whaling activities in the Antarctic violated the International Convention of the Regulation of Whaling, Tokyo halted the program in the Antarctic but said it would continue to hunt whales in local coastal areas and the northwestern Pacific.