Japan all but declared its intent to resume commercial whaling on Wednesday at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Berlin when it submitted a pair of whale-quota proposals that far exceeded the country's previous requests. Both proposals, which essentially attempted to bypass the commercial whaling moratorium, failed, but they set off more heated debate at the already contentious meeting.

Japanese officials asked IWC commissioners for a quota to kill 150 minke whales annually between 2004 and 2008, a 200% annual increase over Japan's previous quota request. Every year for the past decade, Japan's delegation has asked for an annual quota of 50 minke whales for its coastal communities, arguing that the locals in these communities need whaling to make a living. But year each, the 50-minke quota is rejected. This year, IWC commissioners followed suit, rejecting the larger quota by a vote of 19 in favor and 26 against. The quota needed a three-quarters majority for passage.

Japan's second quota request arguably required even more chutzpah: The island nation requested a quota to kill 150 highly endangered Bryde's whales annually over a five-year period. The proposal was rejected by a vote of 17 in favor and 27 against.

"The mask is off," said Kitty Block, United Nations and treaties special counsel for The HSUS who is attending the IWC meeting in Berlin. "This Bryde's whale proposal breaks with Japan's previous attempts to call their whaling small-type coastal whaling. There is no hiding the fact that this proposal is a full-scale attempt to resume high-seas commercial whaling."

The proposals came at an awkward time for Japan. Three animal-welfare organizations, including The HSUS, revealed that whale and dolphin meat was being sold in pet food in Japanese shops. As Agence France Presse reported on Wednesday, the damaging report contradicted "Tokyo's claim of economic necessity."

"The fact that Japan is using whale meat for pet foods totally invalidates Japan's attempts to legitimize and increase their catches," Clare Perry, of Britain's Environmental Investigation Agency, told Agence France Presse.

The final blow to the pro-whaling forces occurred in a symbolic vote later in the day. IWC commissioners condemned Iceland's plan to begin scientific whaling. The island nation rejoined the IWC last fall during a controversial and now contested intercessional meeting in the United Kingdom, but Iceland rejoined with an objection to the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium. That means the country can resume full-scale commercial whaling, which it plans to do by 2006, but it can also begin scientific whaling immediately. Iceland says it intends to kill 500 whales during the course of a two-year scientific study.

Commissioners reacted strongly to Iceland's scientific whaling plan. Commissioners "expressed deep concern that the provision permitting special-permit whaling enables countries to conduct whaling for commercial purposes despite the moratorium on commercial whaling," according to the official condemnation, "and that the whaling operations represent an act contrary to the spirit of the moratorium on commercial whaling and the will of the commission."

The condemnation carries no force of law. Iceland can whale for "scientific" purposes regardless.