By Olivier Fabre
Wada - Workers in the quiet Japanese fishing village of Wada carved up two whales on Thursday, signalling the start of the summer whaling season despite international protests.
Japan in May threatened to quit the International Whaling Commission (IWC) after opposition from anti-whaling nations at the group's annual meeting forced it to scrap a proposal to allow four coastal villages to kill minke whales.
Tokyo, which has long called for the resumption of commercial whaling, argued that its proposal should fall under the umbrella of community whaling, similar to the whaling permitted for indigenous people, since whaling has been part of its culture for thousands of years.
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Wada, a sleepy coastal village that has been whaling for 400 years, is three hours' drive east of Tokyo.
Now half the size it was 20 years ago, Wada is one of the four villages that would have been allowed to resume hunting minkes if the Japanese proposal had passed. It currently hunts Baird's Beaked Whales, which are not regulated by the IWC.
No sooner were the two nine-meter bull whales caught off the coast than villagers set out to cut them up and prepare them for markets and restaurants across the area.
Men, mostly seasonal workers and volunteers, heaved and pulled at heavy chains to move slabs of the 10-tonne whales, hacking through thick layers of blubber and gigantic organs with instruments resembling medieval weapons.
Blood poured down the slope of the outdoor hangar where the cutting was taking place and into large vats.
Some in the town are angry at what they see as Western hypocrisy and vow to carry on their traditions.
"We have to do something in order to eat, so we process the whale meat here," said Yoshinori Shoji, the 46-year-old president of whaling firm Gaibo Hogei.
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