The International Whaling Commission started granting whaling permits to Japan for scientific, but not commercial, purposes in 1986. Japan has now left the commission and discontinued its whale research. It officially resumed commercial whaling on 1 July. In the long run, however, whaling could be a shrinking business.

The Japanese government provided about US$46 million in subsidies for research to define acceptable whale-hunting quotas. The meat was subsequently sold for food at a price publicly decided by the Fisheries Agency of Japan and other organizations.

The withdrawal of this subsidy could encourage commercial whaling, which one firm has already started. However, production of whale meat in Japan has dropped to about 1.5% of its peak in 1962 (roughly 230,000 tonnes) — even though the human population has since increased by around 32%. Whale-meat prices are likely to go up because the cost of whaling is rising, which could further reduce demand. Moreover, Japan’s population seems to be increasingly sympathetic to the global protection of whales, and whale watching has become a popular tourist attraction.

This could be a good time for a global consortium to set up a compensation scheme for whaling countries that refrain from the practice (S. Managi and M. Wakamatsu Nature 546, 352; 2017).