From CBC.ca – Feb 16, 2011

Japan has temporarily suspended its annual Antarctic whaling after
repeated harassment by a conservationist group, a government official
said Wednesday.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships have been chasing the
Japanese whaling fleet for weeks in the icy seas off Antarctica, trying
to block Japan’s annual whale hunt, planned for up to 945 whales.

Japan has halted the hunt since Feb. 10 after persistent “violent”
disruptions by the anti-whaling protesters, said fisheries agency
official Tatsuya Nakaoku.

So far, the attacks have not caused any injuries or major damage to
the vessels, he said, but the protesters are throwing rancid butter in
bottles and once the protesters got a rope entangled in the propeller on
a harpoon vessel, causing it to slow down.

“We have temporarily suspended our research whaling to ensure
safety,” he said. The fleet plans to resume hunting when conditions are
deemed safe, he added, but declined to say how long the suspension is
planned for.

The whale hunts, which Japan says are for scientific purposes, are
allowed by the International Whaling Commission as an exception to the
1986 ban, but opponents say they are a cover for commercial whaling
because whale meat not used for study is sold for consumption in Japan.

The Sea Shepherd group has been shadowing Japan’s whaling fleet for
several years, and its campaign has drawn high-profile donor support in
the United States and elsewhere and spawned the popular Animal Planet
series Whale Wars.

Japan’s fisheries agency has called Sea Shepherd a terrorist group for its militant actions.

Grant Pereira, an advisory board member for the group, welcomed the
halt, saying Japan “should have suspended (the hunts) 10, 15 years ago,”
he said. “It’s morally and legally wrong to kill whales.”