Japan's formal announcement today that it will halt its Antarctic whaling mission for the rest of the season may be an indication that whaling in the Antarctic is coming to an end, says a Green Party MP.
"All the signs are indicating that this may be the last season," said Green Party MP Gareth Hughes. "We're hopeful that it will be the last, ever. Plainly, the economics don't stack up".
Japanese farm and fisheries minister Michihiko Kano said today that the Japanese Government was cutting short the whaling season because of harassment by environmentalists.
Japan was calling its harpoon ships home "to ensure the safety of the whaling crew amid the continuing harassment by anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd," Mr Kano said.
But Mr Hughes said the protest gave the Japanese a face-saving way to avoid pressures such as hardening opposition, and dropping demand for whale meat.
"The young Japanese don't support whaling, don't eat whales,and often don't like the taste," he said.
The old guard of politicians who fondly remembered whale meat from the period after World War 2 were dropping out of politics.
But Mr Hughes said the New Zealand Government should have sent strong message to the Japanese -- such by putting an offshore patrol vessel in the Southern Ocean to monitor the whalers and protest vessels.
Activists from the US-based militant environmental group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have pursued the Japanese fleet for months to stop its harpoon ships from killing the giant sea mammals.
Jiji Press news agency quoted Mr Kano as saying about the factory ship the Nisshin Maru: "Even now the mothership is being chased, and it is difficult to ensure the safety of the crew members."
Japan kills hundreds of whales a year under a loophole in a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling that allows "lethal research".
The Government has long defended the practice as part of the island nation's culture and makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up in restaurants.
Anti-whaling nations, led by Australia and New Zealand, and environmental groups call the hunts cruel and unnecessary.
Greenpeace has argued the state-financed whale hunts were a waste of taxpayers' money, producing excess stockpiles of whale meat.
And Sea Shepherd activists have harassed whalers in recent years, moving their ships and their inflatable and speed boats between the harpoon vessels and the sea mammals, and throwing stink and paint bombs at the whaling ships, trying to prevent the whalers from filling their seasonal quota of 945 whales.
