Japan, to refit the factory ship of the whaling fleet, with a view to maintaining the fleet for at least another decade. Other countries soon followed suit. The Japan Whaling Association has restarted activities as a voluntary Non-Governmental Organization since 1988 following the commercial whaling moratorium. The Americans began running whaling operations out of Nantucket, Mass., in 1712 [source: Kline].

Australian Whaling History and Japanese Whaling Melanie Sullivan. 3 encounters Hunting and thus eating whale has been referenced back to the eighth century.

National Apr 1, 2019.
1987 Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru No. 1989 During second “scientific whaling” voyage, the Nisshin Maru No. England started hunting bowhead whales around the North American colonies in 1611, and Japan started whaling in 1675. 3 and three catchers set out on first “scientific whaling” voyage in Antarctic, to kill up to 330 minke whales.

(Source) With the… whaling Japanese factory ship hauling a minke whale through a slipway in the ship's stern, 1992. Japanese fleet's return to port spells end to contentious research whaling in Antarctic Ocean. For a general overview of whaling and whaling history, here are some resources to start your exploration. Polls: Indifference to Whaling, Opposition to Funding † A majority of Japanese—54.7 percent—are indifferent to whaling. History of Whaling Whaling is a practice that started thousands of years ago, going back to the Neolithic Period where Norwegians hunted killer whales. WhalingHistory.org is a repository for data about whaling. The oldest Japanese book in existence, called the Kojiki, narrated that the Emperor Jimmu, the first emperor of Japan, ate whale meat. Each of them takes a different approach: a narrative, a collection of artifacts and maps, a timeline, a … We are continuously playing our roll for the resumption of the commercial whaling, which is … (Source – “Traditional Whaling in Taiji”) Eating whale meat has a rich tradition in the Japanese culture.

Culley/Greenpeace Whaling has been documented in many sources—from Neolithic cave art to present-day annual reports of the International Whaling Commission —but there is no firm proof as to what people first engaged in the practice.
After the war, a group of whaling nations founded the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1946 to assure conservation of the remaining whale stocks to allow resumption of whaling. Japan resumed its Antarctic whaling expeditions after the Second World War to secure whale meat for its starving population and eventually joined the IWC in 1951. For commercial whaling resumption.