Japanese children as young as ten are watching whales being slaughtered to teach them the "cultural importance" of Japan's controversial commercial whaling industry.

As the whaling season get underway, schoolchildren in Wada, 50 miles southeast of Tokyo, have been on field trips to see the first Baird's beaked whales of the year winched up the concrete slipway and carved up with razor-sharp flensing knives.

Smartly dressed and in bright yellow caps, the children took notes and sketched parts of the 36 foot whale as it was dismembered.

From their small boats, local fishermen will harpoon up to 26 of the whales during the three-month season. Wada can trace its whaling history back to 1612, when the 10-tonne whales were harpooned by hand. It is now one of just four communities permitted to conduct coastal whaling.