IN ONE of Tokyo’s oldest whale restaurants, Kujiraya, the whiff of resentment lingers along with the cloying smell of fried whale meat as customers digest unwelcome news from The Hague. On April 1st the International Court of Justice legally skewered Japan’s “scientific” whale hunts to the Antarctic Ocean. The hunt is partly paid for by the sale of meat to high-end restaurants such as this one, which is why opponents brand it as illegal commercial whaling in disguise.

To the surprise of Japan’s small band of whale-meat lovers, the court agreed. Twelve of its 16 judges sided with Australia, which brought the case, saying that Japan had no scientific reason to cull about 1,000 Antarctic whales each year. The court noted that the research had produced just two peer-edited papers in a decade, in effect tugging away the figleaf used to keep Japan’s whaling programme alive since the international moratorium in 1986 which ended commercial hunts.

The government has long argued that whaling is an ancient Japanese tradition. Maintaining the argument has been costly. A report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare says Japan has in effect nationalised its whaling programme, subsidising it to the tune of $400m since 1988. Ever fewer Japanese eat whale meat. For the middle-aged diners, a visit to Kujiraya is an expensive culinary trip down memory lane (industrial whaling expanded after 1945, when a ravaged country was desperate for fresh sources of protein). Over 5,000 tonnes now sits unsold in deep freezes.

The Hague decision comes at a key moment. Rising oil prices and extra security to protect the whaling fleet from attacks by militant environmentalists have pushed the cost of each annual Antarctic cull to over $10m, says Atsushi Ishii, an expert on Japan’s environmental politics. The whaling industry is so desperate for funds—and so politically connected—that it managed to claim $28m from tsunami relief funds in 2011, causing an international outcry. The whaling fleet badly needs a new mother ship, at a cost that would spark a domestic debate about the point of the campaign.

A spokesman for the fisheries agency says Japan will abide by the decision but continue “scientific” whaling in the western North Pacific, a cull that yields about half that of the Antarctic catch. That will almost certainly trigger another legal challenge. And scaling down the size of Japan’s scientific study to meet the court’s new legal requirements could mean a cull of barely ten whales—hardly worthwhile.

Japan has another option. It could follow Norway (which taught Japan industrial whaling a century ago) and Iceland by ignoring demands to stop killing whales. But unlike those countries, Japan withdrew its objection to the 1986 moratorium. Snubbing it now would also mean flouting several international sea treaties, with diplomatic consequences. Japan seems to have swallowed this week’s lump of news and will keep its fleet at home.