The Nisshin Maru, the main ship in Japan’s whaling fleet, has left port for Antarctica under tight security and without fanfare, environmentalist group Greenpeace says.

Leaving Innoshima in western Japan, it is the ship’s first hunt in the region since its return to port in April following clashes with militant anti-whaling activists and a fire which crippled the vessel. Japanese authorities have refused to comment on the Nisshin Maru’s departure.

Greenpeace says the Nisshin Maru mission is part of Japan’s plan to take about 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales this season – the same target as in 2007. Last year six ships took part in the hunt.

The vessel’s movements will be followed by a ship belonging to Sea Shepherd, an anti-whaling group that skirmished repeatedly with the fleet at sea last year in an attempt to halt the hunt.


‘Needless killing’

Earlier today, Australia urged Japan to abandon its yearly hunt, launching its own scientific whaling study in the Southern Ocean to prove it was not necessary to kill the ocean mammals to study them.

“Modern-day research uses genetic and molecular techniques as well as satellite tags, acoustic methods and aerial surveys rather than grenade-tipped harpoons,” said Australian environment minister Peter Garrett.

“Australia does not believe that we need to kill whales to understand them,” he said.

A Japanese Fisheries Agency official last week denied a newspaper report that Tokyo would cut by 20% the number of whales it planned to hunt due to anti-whaling protests. But the official said that a moratorium on catching humpback whales would stay in place.

“Constant pressure on Japan’s whaling industry by both Greenpeace and the international community has reduced the fleet to sneaking out of port in a fog of crisis and scandal, desperate to avoid attention,” says Sara Holden, Greenpeace International’s whales coordinator.

Japanese whaling officials declined to confirm the ship’s departure, citing safety considerations, but a worker at a local hotel said about 10 people connected with the Institute of Cetacean Research and whalers’ families had stayed overnight.

Diplomatic row

Last season’s row over whaling threatened to escalate when two Sea Shepherd activists boarded a Japanese whaling ship without permission and were temporarily held by its crew.

The incident led to a string of diplomatic complaints between Japan and Australia, which has been a vocal critic of the whaling programme.

Canberra last year sent a customs and fisheries icebreaker to shadow anti-whaling activists and the Japanese fleet, gathering photo evidence of the yearly research hunt for a possible international legal case against Tokyo.

Garrett said on Monday a legal case was still under consideration, but no decision yet had been made on whether to send another patrol boat south this year.

Japan’s Fisheries Agency blamed Sea Shepherd and a dearth of whale sightings for their catch of only 551 minke whales last season – hundreds short of target. A plan to start hunting humpback whales was dropped last year after protests from the US and other countries.

Environmental group Greenpeace has said it will break with its tradition of sending a ship to follow the whalers this season, concentrating instead on a court case involving two of its activists in Japan, who are accused of stealing whale meat.