Australia orders Japanese whaler from Antarctic waters
Date: 03-Jan-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
A spokesman for the parliamentary secretary for the environment, Sharman Stone, said Australian research ship Aurora Australis came across the Japanese whaler early on New Year's Day about 38 nautical miles (70.38 km) inside the economic exclusion zone.
"The Aurora Australis ordered it to leave Australian territorial waters via short wave radio and we believe it scurried out back to its factory ship," the spokesman told Reuters.
The ship was with a fleet of five Japanese vessels that set sail in early November, planning to catch around 400 Minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean for research purposes before returning to Japan in April.
The spokesman said the Australian government was limited in its actions because Japan was one of a number of countries which did not recognise territorial claims in the Antarctic and also as it held permits for so-called scientific whaling.
Although Japan gave up commercial whaling in line with an international moratorium in 1986, it has been carrying out what it calls scientific research whaling since 1987.
Japan stands by its position that Minke whales are an abundant species of whale despite global protests and complaints by environmental groups that some of the whale meat, a gourmet food in Japan, ends up being used by Japanese restaurants.
Environmental group Greenpeace, which has been following the fleet since it left Japan, congratulated the Australian government for its stand against Japan's whaling.
"They should not be whaling at all given the internationally agreed moratorium on commercial whaling, let alone be whaling in these waters which are part of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary," spokesman Kieran Mulvaney said in a statement.
