( CNN ) -- Whalers from a Japanese coastal town have celebrated the start of this year 's hunting season by slicing up a whale in front of a crowd of school children . In the town of Wada , 62 miles ( 100 kilometers ) south of Tokyo in Chiba prefecture , dozens of 10-year-old students watched Thursday as workers carved up a 30-foot Baird 's beaked whale during an educational field trip , before being served a meal of fried whale meat . Whaling remains a way of life for fishermen in Wada , and they are eager to pass on the trade to the next generation . Children are taught about the history of whaling , the biology of the animals , and how to cook the meat . Whalers say they 've been catching and eating whales in the area for centuries . This year 's hunting season , which began on June 20 , is the first since an international court ordered Japan to end its controversial research whaling expedition in the Antarctic , after failing to find evidence the program had legitimate scientific value . The city of Minamiboso , of which Wada is a part , has one of a handful of ports that is exempt from the ban under a small-scale coastal whaling program . So far this year , Gaibo Whaling Company has hunted six whales in the city 's coastal waters and plans to catch another 24 before the season ends in August . Despite the Antarctic ban and growing pressure from the international community , Japan has continued its northwest Pacific scientific whaling mission . It is also eager to revise its Antarctic program to allow the hunt to continue while satisfying the demands of the U.N. 's International Court of Justice . In Japan 's parliament last month , Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would like the country to resume commercial whaling `` in order to obtain scientific information indispensable to the management of the whale resources . '' But environmentalists say Japan 's whaling research program is a thinly veiled attempt to circumvent a ban on the commercial whale meat trade . Patrick Ramage from the International Fund for Animal Welfare believes it 's time Japan moved from killing whales to conserving them . `` Respect for cultural differences is fundamental , but friends of Japan and fans of Japanese culture around the world are watching this with sadness , '' Ramage told CNN 's Will Ripley . `` Japanese school children should be meeting whales through whale watching , not eating whale meat , '' he said . Japan 's supporters of eating whale meat say that it is a tradition that dates back hundreds of years , and accuses western critics of cultural imperialism . But consumption rates across the country have fallen in recent years , leading to large stockpiles of whale meat . Last month , Japan 's Agriculture , Forestry and Fisheries Ministry released a photo of the agriculture minister Yoshimasa Hayashi eating a bowl of whale meat to encourage other Japanese citizen to do the same , and visitors to the ministry were given free samples of the delicacy . In a survey of Japanese people released in April , only 4 % of respondents said they ate whale meat occasionally , compared to 37 % who said they did n't eat it at all . CNN 's Will Ripley contributed to this report .
Coastal town teaches children about whaling , serving up fried whale meat . An international court has banned Japan 's scientific whale hunting in the Antarctic . Japan is eager to revise and resume the mission . Despite the ban , small - scale coastal hunts and fishing in northwest Pacific continue .