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Greenpeace
has ended a month-long chase of Japanese whaling ships around the
Southern Ocean.
Greenpeace said its battles to frustrate the efforts of Japanese
whalers would now be fought on the supermarket shelves.
The group is trying to turn consumer power against fishing
companies that finance the whaling industry.
Southern Ocean expedition leader Shane Rattenbury said logistically
Greenpeace had to end their current campaign.
"For a month now we have dogged, delayed and disrupted the whaling
fleet in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and have no doubt that
they have fallen far behind in their bid to slaughter 935 minke
whales and 10 endangered fin whales," he said.
"It is our hope that this struggle will inspire people to help us
defend whales, so that it goes down in history as the last time the
peaceful silence in the sanctuary is broken by the sound of a
grenade-tipped harpoon."
Greenpeace's Antarctica campaign caught wide media attention as its
inflatable rafts took on the whaling ships in rough seas.
Last week one of its activists in an inflatable raft was knocked
into the icy waters by the rope of a harpoon which killed a minke
whale.
And earlier this month the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise collided
with the 129m Japanese factory ship, the Nisshin Maru.
There also were claims the whalers fired a harpoon between two
inflatable rafts full of activists, attempting to get between the
Japanese ship and whales.
The incidents caused slanging matches between the environmental
organisation and Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), both
arguing they had the evidence the other was at fault.
The Japanese say their whale cull is scientific research and were
understood to have doubled a planned catch of minke whales this
year to 935 and added 10 endangered fin whales to their
quota.
The Arctic Sunrise and its sister ship the Esperanza with their 57
crew will leave the Southern Ocean region for Cape Town, Greenpeace
said in a statement.
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