ANCHORAGE, Alaska, May 31 (UPI) -- International Whaling Commission delegates in Alaska passed resolutions condemning Japan's research hunting program and environmentalists' efforts to block it.
Countries are permitted to kill whales for research purposes but the 1,000 whales that Japan kills each year in the Antarctic and north Pacific is excessive, anti-whaling members of the commission said at the group's meeting, the BBC reported.
"Every scientific catch is a stain on the record of this commission," Monaco's whaling commissioner Frederic Briand said.
Several countries abstained in the vote condemning Japan's research whaling program.
While the vote was a victory for anti-whaling groups Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, the commission also approved a measure condemning "any actions that are a risk to human life and property in relation to the activities of vessels at sea" that was aimed at the environmental groups.
"We maintain that our protests are peaceful and non-violent," Shane Rattenbury of Greenpeace International told the BBC.
