Although the Australian government will not be officially monitoring the annual whale hunt, they have made it clear to Japan that they believe the “scientific study” is nonsense and that it needs to end.

Australia has criticized the whale hunt for years but this may be the beginning of an increasingly hostile relationship on this issue.

Al Jazeera has more from Tony Burke, Australia’s environment minister on the whale hunt:

“In the interim it is open to Japan any day of the year to take the same action that the rest of world has taken and that is to observe a moratorium in the Southern Ocean. That is to accept that commercial whaling is wrong and scientific whaling is a joke,” he said. “We cannot continue to have a situation where everybody knows it’s nothing to do with science and yet, with a nod and a wink, Japanese fleets travel from one side of the globe to the other to engage in this, and to break the moratorium year after year,” Burke added.

More from Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: