whales were killed, implied that Antarctic minke whales lost 9% of their blubber over 18 years due to a lack of ocean resources such as krill. Lars Walløe, a Norwegian of the University of Oslo, assisted with analyzing the data and claimed the study was first rejected by two other journals for political reasons. Nick Gales, of the Australian Antarctic Division, stated the study failed to address criticisms of its methodology when initially presented. The study contradicted previous JARPA studies indicating Antarctic minke whale populations were healthy. Resumption of commercial whaling Following the September 2018 Florianopolis Declaration where the IWC rejected Japan's latest commercial hunt proposal, and concluded that the purpose of the IWC is the conservation of whales, Japan withdrew its IWC membership on December 26, 2018. It then resumed commercial hunting in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone on July 1, 2019, but ceased whaling activities in the Antarctic Ocean. Japan expects to hunt 227 minke whales by the end of 2019, but without government subsidies, their whaling industry is not expected to survive. A subsidy of 5.1 billion yen (US$47.31 million) was budgeted for commercial whaling in 2019. Controversy Anti-whaling governments and groups have strongly opposed Japan's whaling program. Greenpeace argues that whales are endangered and must be protected. The Japanese government claims that it strongly supports the protection of endangered species, and the scientific whaling is essential to gather information about the status of the various populations. It further claims that the scale of the research is such that it does not affect the stock of the species. The 1985 IWC estimate put the Southern Hemisphere minke whale population at 761,000 (510,000–1,140,000 in the 95% confidence estimate). A paper submitted to the IWC on population estimates in Antarctic waters using CNB gives a population of 665,074 based on Southern Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research Programme (SOWER) data. Research methodology has come under scrutiny as it has been argued that non-lethal methods of research are available and that Japan's research whaling is commercial whaling in disguise. The Japanese claim that the accuracy of tissue and feces samples is insufficient and lethal sampling is necessary. In 2002, the World Wildlife Fund published an open letter to the Japanese (in both Japanese and English text) in the New York Times signed by a group of international scientists, stating their assertion that "Japan's whale 'research' program fails to meet