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Australian and New Zealand scientists are doing something the Japanese cannot seem to manage.
They are carrying out extensive research into whale behaviour in Antarctic waters, without killing the animal.
The scientists are attaching satellite tags to humpback and minke whales in an attempt to find out more about their migration.
The migration path of the whales is not very well known, despite knowing they breed in the tropics and feed in Antarctica.
"We've never been able to get down here. This is the first time we've been able to get come down here and do good science," says Rochelle Constanine from Auckland University.
The mainly Australian scientists have spent the past month working aboard the New Zealand NIWA research ship Tangaroa.
"At one point in the boat today we had thousands, literally thousands of sooty shearwaters feeding around us and three humpback whales moving through that group feeding on surface krill," says expedition leader Nick Gales.
"It's quite extrordinary. It's an exciting, privileged place to be."
It can also be very rough at times which can delay work that includes taking small biopsies.
The whales' family grouping and feeding behaviour is also being researched by the 17 scientists.
"Most of these whales were taken down to very tiny numbers and are now recovering, so we want to know where they're recovering in the southern ocean," Gales says.
"It's a big area. These are big questions for the southern ecosystem that we can at last begin to answer through these non-lethal methods."
The group has also collected other valuable scientific data on at least nine species of whales and dolphins, including humpback, Antarctic minke, sei, sperm, fin, killer, southern bottlenose whales and hourglass dolphins.
Loophole
The voyage concentrated mainly on humpback and Antarctic minke whales - species being targeted by Japanese whalers who claim they have to kill 1,000 whales each year "for research".
A loophole in the 1986 ban on commercial whaling allows the mammals to be killed for research, but critics say the scientific grounds for the hunt are a facade, as meat ends up being sold to the public for consumption.
The Japanese government-sponsored Institute of Cetacean Research has already said the work done by SORP will have little impact on their annual slaughter.
"The only way you can get certain information, birthing data, how old a whale is when she gives birth, the number of times that a whale gives birth within its lifetime, this can only be obtained through killing them," New Zealand spokesman for the institute, Glen Inwood, said last month.
