news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_as/japan_whaling_ship
AP Japan to pull whaling fleet in Antarctic By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 28, 2:02 PM ET TOKYO - A Japanese whaling fleet is heading home after high-seas brinksmanship with environmental groups and a deadly fire that crippled its mother ship and ended the hunt in the Antarctic hundreds of whales short of its goal.
The return of the six-ship fleet brought to an early end this year's hunt, which had been scheduled to continue through March. Officials said it was the first time in the 20 years since the scientific hunts began that one had to end early. "We are very disappointed," Takahide Naruko, the head of the Fisheries Agency's Far Seas Division, said Wednesday. Officials also lodged a strong protest over "vicious and reckless" attempts by whaling opponents to sabotage the hunt, which killed 508 whales out of a target of 860. The fire aboard the Nisshin Maru two weeks ago killed one crew member and left the vessel unable to sail under its own power for 10 days, prompting protests from New Zealand and from the environmental group Greenpeace over potential oil and chemical spills or damage to penguin colonies. Naruko said the cause of the fire was under investigation. He said the Nisshin Maru would likely be repaired in time for the next hunt, in the northwest Pacific in May, when Japan plans to kill 350 whales.
International Whaling Commission -- which allows the hunts -- on populations, feeding habits and distribution of the mammals. But the program has long been the target of environmental groups, which say it is a pretext for Japan to keep its whalers afloat despite an international ban on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. After researchers complete their studies of the killed whales, the meat is sold in Japan for food. Naruko said that although the number of whales killed fell short of the target, it was sufficient to conduct some research and to distribute for sale. "I don't think there will be a significant increase in the cost of whale meat," he said. Japan has been increasingly strident in its calls for a lifting of the commercial whaling ban. This month, it hosted a conference of whaling supporters and issued a stinging rebuke of dozens of anti-whaling nations that stayed away, saying their absence would prevent reforms. Tokyo maintains that whaling is a national tradition and a vital part of its food culture, and argues that whale stocks have sufficiently recovered since 1986 to allow a resumption of limited hunts of certain species. But Greenpeace and other environmental groups say lifting the ban would open the door to excessive kills, and that research could be done without killing whales. This year's protests, led by the Sea Shepherd group, were particularly heated. Japanese officials on Tuesday showed videos of protesters aboard a Sea Shepherd ship -- flying a skull-and-crossbones pirate flag -- launching smoke canisters, throwing containers filled with chemicals, and dropping ropes and nets to try to entangle the ships' propellors. One video also showed a protest ship ramming a whaling vessel. "Such vicious and reckless actions by the Sea Shepherd not only violate the international agreements established in order to prohibit piracy and guarantee the safety of navigation, they are inexcusable criminal acts," said Hiroshi Hatanaka, head of the Institute of Cetacean Research, which is in charge of the hunts. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Monday that the Nisshin Maru -- carrying 343,000 gallons of fuel oil -- posed a huge risk to the pristine Antarctic environment and called the fire a "disaster." Japanese officials stress that no oil has leaked from the ship and said it safely moved away from the Antarctic coast under its own power last weekend.
In this photo released by Japanese government-affiliated Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo, Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling ship, right, tied along side one of its fleet vessels Yushin Maru No. Japan has decided to pull its whaling fleet out of the Antarctic and end this year's whale hunt early after a deadly fire crippled its mothership, officials said Wednesday, Feb.
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