Buckling under mounting international pressure and passionate criticism from Australia, the Japanese whaling fleet has called off its hunt for endangered humpbacks.

The humiliating U-turn comes as the Japanese fleet was understood to be only days away from catching its first humpback whale for more than 40 years. The climbdown follows a threat by Australia that it would consider taking Japan to an international court in an effort to stop all hunting.

The whaling ships set sail from Shimonoseki in late November and the Japanese authorities astonished activists across the globe by revealing that as well as the usual annual catch of minke whales, they were hoping to land around 50 humpback and fin whales for the first time since the 1960s.

Japan has grown accustomed to drawing the implacable fury of conservationists for its determination to hunt whales but the decision to hunt humpbacks unleashed an unexpected wave of condemnation.

The Government of Australia, which has been the most vocal in its attack on the Japanese whalers, upped the ante earlier this week when it said that it would deploy a fisheries patrol vessel to spy on the whaling fleet.

Australia said that it would also fly a commercial aircraft over the Southern Ocean to photograph the Japanese fleet as it conducts its hunt.

The pictures, some believe, could provide sufficient evidence to build a court case against whaling.

Previous sabre-rattling on the issue has included hints from Canberra that the Australian military may be brought in to patrol the whaling grounds of the Southern Ocean.

Nobutaka Machimura, the Japanese Government’s chief spokesman, said on Friday that the pursuit of humpbacks would be suspended while talks to reform the International Whaling Commission were under way. The issue has already entered the realm of high diplomacy, with Mr Machimura expressing the hope that the antipathy over whaling would not harm relations between Tokyo and Canberra.

Masahiko Komura, Japan’s Foreign Minister, yesterday repeated Tokyo’s position that the hunt was in line with international treaties. “I would like to speak with [Australia’s] Foreign Minister in some form soon,” he said. “We will try to seek each other’s understanding.”

The surprise decision will not, however, put a stop to Japan’s traditional annual hunt for minke whales: plans to land a record haul of 1,000 minkes remain unaltered.

Also unaffected is Japan’s staunch defence of the hunt as scientific — a euphemism that exploits a legal loophole and in effect allows commercial whaling to be undertaken on a grand scale.

Before yesterday’s U-turn Japan argued that whale stocks were easily large enough to survive a cull of the size it was planning. Estimates by the American Cetacean Society suggest a worldwide population of between 30,000 to 40,000 humpback whales: the World Conservation Union places the species two rungs below the highest risk of extinction.

Japan’s position on whaling, say government insiders, stems from a dread of having its activities on the high seas dictated by the outside world.

Among the biggest concerns is that if it concedes too much ground on whaling, the activists’ next target will be Japan’s tuna fleets.

Humpback whale

15m maximum length

20-40 tonnes

35,000 estimated stock

35% of pre-industrial population

Source: American Cetacean Society

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