In defiance of an International Whaling Commission non-binding vote to impose strict limits on “scientific whaling,” Japan on Thursday announced plans to proceed with a new round of culls scheduled for next year. The whale conservation organization voted at a meeting to require all scientific whaling programs be put before a committee for guidance. The vote would have extended the moratorium on Japan’s scientific whaling that was announced following an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling earlier this year. However, Japanese officials claimed a different interpretation of the ICJ ruling and announced that they will continue with their plans of scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean.