whaling

She said the increase could be due to a number of reasons, including that whale populations are recovering following the end of commercial whaling in the 1980s.

Like bowhead and right whales, these were also almost wiped out by whaling.

Police had acted on a 2012 Japanese warrant that accused him of causing damage to a Japanese whaling ship, obstructing business and injuring a crew member during an encounter in Antarctic waters in February 2010.

A recent study in the journal Science calculates just how much, reporting that — thanks to the near-total disappearance of commercial whaling — accidental ship collisions are now the leading cause of unnatural large whale deaths worldwide.

The country is one of only three in the world that still allow whaling - where whales are hunted for their meat, blubber and oil - along with Japan and Norway.