Australia to monitor Japanese whaling

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia will send planes and a ship to conduct surveillance of Japanese whaling ships off Antarctica, the government announced Wednesday.

The craft will collect photographic and video evidence that would be used to decide if Australia will launch legal action to try to stop Japan’s whaling program, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.

Smith also said Australia will lead a group of anti-whaling nations in lodging a formal protest with the Japanese government within the next few days against Japan’s plans to harvest more than 1,000 whales, including 50 humpbacks, in its largest-ever scientific whale hunt.

“We are dealing here with the slaughter of whales, not scientific research,” Smith told a news conference. “That is our start point and our end point.”

Japanese government officials said the research whaling is permitted under International Whaling Commission rules and the whalers will go ahead with their plans.

“Australia is free to do whatever it wants, send planes or a ship,” said Ryotaro Suzuki, director of the fisheries division at Japan’s Foreign Ministry. “We have no immediate plans to lodge a protest against the Australian action, as long as they don’t use force to stop the Japanese whaling fleet.”

Each year, Japan defies a ban on killing whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary – a massive feeding ground in the Antarctic Ocean that the International Whaling Commission has declared off-limits for commercial whaling – saying its program is exempt because it is for scientific purposes.