South Korea retreats from whaling plan
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2012:
SEOUL--“Korea has decided to scrap its plan to resume whaling for scientific Research,” the Korea Herald reported on July 17, 2012, just 12 days after South Korean whaling commissioner Joon-Suk Kang announced the scheme to the 64th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission meeting in Panama.
“Discussions between government ministries have been concluded in a way that effectively scraps the plan to allow whaling in coastal waters,” an unidentified senior South Korean official reportedly told the Korea Herald and the Yonhap news agency. Cautioned Agence France-Press, “The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries declined to confirm the report.”
Earlier, Agence France-Presse reported that the South Korean Ministry of Maritime Affairs had pledged to ban bottlenose dolphin captures for exhibition, in pending legislation which would also protect sea turtles and sea horses. The dolphin capture permitting process is to be amended to allow captures only for scientific research.
In March 2012 the Seoul Grand Park Zoo agreed to suspend a dolphin show and to release the illegally captured star dolphin by March 2014. In April 2012 a Jeju District Court judge ordered the dolphin exhibitor Jeju Pacific Land to release five illegally captured dolphins.
