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New Zealand and Australia have joined together in what they hope will be a blow to Japan's scientific whaling in the Antarctic.
Almost 900 whales are killed every year by Japan, but research vessel RV Tangaroa will voyage into the Antarctic in a bid to prove whales do not need to die for research to be carried out on them.
Japan has argued that all whales they kill are for scientific purposes and that their research cannot be done without slaying them - but this expedition aims to produce non-lethal scientific data.
Australia's Environmental Minister, Peter Garrett, flew into Wellington on Friday for the project and was clear in his government's views on whaling.
"We remain absolutely and completely opposed to killing whales in the name of science.
"For the first time we have a research project - the largest of its kind in the world - which places a premium on scientific knowledge and says that we don't have to kill whales in order to understand them and to learn about them," Garrett says.
The Tangaroa will face a wind chill factor of minus 30 degrees, raging oceans and huge icebergs on the six-week trip.
But scientists say the potential rewards of studying Antarctic minke whales, humpback whales and blue whales will outweigh the risks.
"I think the science that will come out of this will be important not just for understanding whales but understanding how the southern ocean eco-system works," says Dr Steve Nicol, an Australian whale specialist.
The experts will take small skin and blubber samples from the animals to uncover dietary and relationship details and will check out the impact on sea ice and krill numbers.
The results from the expedition will be presented at the International Whaling Commission in June.
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