Yoko Kubota PlanetArk 17 Feb 11;
Japan has suspended its annual whale hunt in the Antarctic for now after a hardline anti-whaling group gave chase to its mother ship and it may call the fleet back home, a government official said.
Regular attempts by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to interrupt hunts have caused irritation in Japan, one of only three countries that now hunt whales and where the government says it is an important cultural tradition.
"Putting safety as a priority, the fleet has halted scientific whaling for now. We are currently considering what to do hereafter," said Tatsuya Nakaoku, an official at the Fisheries Agency.
When asked if Japan was considering bringing back the fleet earlier than planned, he said this remained an option and added that Japan's whaling plans were not going smoothly.
Representatives for Sea Shepherd were not immediately available for comment.
Japan introduced scientific whaling to skirt the commercial whaling ban under a 1986 moratorium, arguing it had a right to watch the whales' impact on its fishing industry.
The fleet, consisting of some 180 people on four vessels, is aiming to cull about 850 minke whales in Antarctic waters this season, which is scheduled to end around March.
In the same period last year, Japan killed 506 minke whales, well below its planned catch of around 850.
Last year, Australia filed a complaint against Japan at the world court in The Hague to stop Southern Ocean scientific whaling. The decision is expected to come in 2013 or later.
A Sea Shepherd activist was given a two-year suspended jail term by a Japanese court in July for boarding a whaling ship, while one of the group's ships sank last year after a collision with a Japanese whaling ship.
(Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Japan whalers suspend Antarctic hunt
Frank Zeller Yahoo News 16 Feb 11;
TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese whalers have suspended their Antarctic hunt, citing harassment by environmentalists, and are considering ending their annual mission early, a fisheries agency official said on Wednesday.
Activists from the US-based militant environmental group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have pursued the Japanese fleet for months to stop its harpoon ships from killing the giant sea mammals.
Japanese Fisheries Agency official Tatsuya Nakaoku said the factory ship "the Nisshin Maru, which has been chased by Sea Shepherd, has suspended operations since February 10 so as to ensure the safety" of the crew.
"We are now studying the situation, including the possibility of cutting the mission early," he told AFP, confirming media reports, but stressed that "nothing has been decided at this point".
Prime Minister Naoto Kan's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, confirmed the temporary suspension and said the "Sea Shepherd's repeated sabotage is extremely deplorable", Kyodo News reported.
The Jiji Press news agency said, without naming sources, that the government was considering calling the fleet home earlier than the usual end of the annual expeditions, which would be in mid-March.
Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) Television also said "the government is judging the situation so dangerous that it may cause casualties, and preparing to call back the fleet and ending the research whaling earlier than usual".
A TBS newscaster added: "If the government does call back the fleet it would mean giving in to anti-whaling activists, which would affect other research whaling missions. The government will have to make a difficult decision."
Sea Shepherd captain Paul Watson, speaking to AFP by satellite phone, gave a cautious welcome to the reports and confirmed that the Nisshin Maru was now sailing in waters far from the hunting area.
"If that's true then it demonstrates that our tactics, our strategies have been successful," Watson said from his ship, the Steve Irwin.
"I don't think they've gotten more than 30 whales... certainly they haven't got many whales at all."
Sea Shepherd activists have harassed whalers in recent years, moving their ships and inflatable and speed boats between the harpoon vessels and the sea mammals, and throwing stink and paint bombs at the whaling ships.
Watson was reluctant to claim victory but said that "every whale saved is a victory to us, so we've gotten a lot of victories down here this year".
Another anti-whaling group, the US-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, said it welcomed the reports, in emailed comments from Patrick Ramage, director of IFAW's Global Whale Programme.
"We hope this is a first sign of Japanese government decision-makers recognizing there is no future for whaling in the 21st century and that responsible whale watching, the only genuinely sustainable use of whales, is now the best way forward for a great nation like Japan," he said.
Japan kills hundreds of whales a year under a loophole in a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling that allows "lethal research".
The government has long defended the practice as part of the island-nation's culture and makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up in restaurants.
Anti-whaling nations, led by Australia and New Zealand, and environmental groups call the hunts cruel and unnecessary.
Greenpeace has long argued the state-financed whale hunts are a waste of taxpayers' money, producing excess stockpiles of whale meat.
Junichi Sato, an anti-whaling campaigner at Greenpeace, said the group had information that the fleet would indeed return home early because Japan is already burdened with excess stocks of whale meat.
"Given the excessive stockpiles, they are economically troubled," he told AFP, noting that the factory ship is not big enough to carry the hunt's target number of up to 1,000 whales.
"Harassment has been cited as the reason, but really this is about Japan's internal situation."
