Australia to shadow Antarctic hunt by Japanese whalers
Ship, aircraft to seek evidence for legal challenge
Captain Paul Watson and Terri Irwin, wife of the late Steve Irwin, stand on the deck of a Sea Shepherd ship renamed in honour of the late "Crocodile Hunter." The ship will be used in an attempt to disrupt ...
CANBERRA - Australia will send a fisheries patrol ship to shadow Japan's whaling fleet near Antarctica and gather evidence for a possible international court challenge aimed at halting the yearly slaughter.

The icebreaker Oceanic Viking, used for customs and fisheries policing, will leave for the Southern Ocean in days to follow the Japanese fleet, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Environment Minister Peter Garrett said yesterday.

The decision risks antagonizing Japan's government, which says it will not tolerate interference in the "scientific" whaling expedition. Japan says the program is necessary to prove that cetacean populations have recovered sufficiently to allow a return to commercial whaling, banned internationally since 1986.

"One of the few issues on which we fundamentally disagree is Japan's policy of undertaking so-called 'scientific whaling' in the face of widespread opposition from the Australian and international community," said a statement from the ministers.

"Australia is determined to play a leading role in international efforts to stop Japan's whaling practices."

To avoid a high-seas incident and ease concern in Tokyo, heavy machine guns on the ship and sidearms carried by the crew will be locked in storage below decks.

Greenpeace and the militant environmental group Sea Shepherd have each sent a ship to the Southern Ocean to try to disrupt Japan's plan to kill more than 1,000 whales over the Antarctic summer, the most since it began research whaling in 1987.

Greenpeace has vowed to stage a non-violent campaign, but Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson has threatened in the past to ram his ship -- recently renamed the "Steve Irwin" in honour of the late Australian "Crocodile Hunter" -- into Japanese whalers.

Japan's plan to kill as many as 935 minke whales, 50 fin whales and, for the first time in 40 years, 50 humpback whales, has drawn criticism from the United States, the European Union, New Zealand and Australia since the whaling fleet set sail on Nov. 18.

Humpbacks were hunted to near extinction until the International Whaling Commission ordered their protection in 1966.

Patrols by an A319 Airbus jet used by Australian Antarctic scientists will also follow and photograph the Japanese fleet.

"If you read Australian lips, you'll say that slaughtering whales is not scientific. It's cruel, it's barbaric and it's unnecessary,"

said Mr. Garrett, whose centre-left Labor government, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, won elections last month partly on a promise of tougher anti-whaling action.

Japan has long resisted pressure to stop scientific whaling, insisting whaling is a cherished cultural tradition. Its fleet has killed 7,000 Antarctic minkes over the past 20 years.

"Japan's whaling is being conducted in line with international treaties and for the purpose of scientific research. We would like to win the understanding of others," a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Tokyo.

Mr. Smith said photographic and video evidence gathered by the ship and aircraft will be used to build a case against Japan in international courts, including the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Greenpeace Australia chief executive Steve Shallhorn welcomed the Australian government's action but said it would not stop campaigners from his group putting inflatable boats between the Japanese ships and the whales.

"We go down there to save the lives of individual whales and as long as someone is whaling in the Southern Ocean whaling sanctuary, we will go down there to use non-violent confrontation to protect whales," he told ABC radio.

Terri Irwin, whose husband died from a stingray attack off Australia's Great Barrier Reef in September, 2006, this month gave Sea Shepherd permission to rename one of its two ships after the TV wildlife program host.

"Whales have always been in Steve's heart, and in 2006 he was investigating the possibility of joining the Sea Shepherd on part of its journey to defend these beautiful animals," she said.