SANTIAGO — Whales emerged the big losers as a weeklong International Whaling Commission meeting wrapped up in Chile on Friday, conservation groups said after anti-whaling nations failed to halt No. 1 hunter Japan.

Anti-whale hunting nations led by Australia have voiced deep concern at Japan's skirting a nonbinding 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling by killing hundreds of whales each year in the name of scientific research.

Japan says it is unhappy with the moratorium and wants to resume commercial whaling, though detractors say it is already doing so in all but name.

The issue has generated so much tension that IWC Chair Bill Hogarth, seeking to avoid confrontation, set up a working group to try to build a consensus over the next year.

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