Australian PM dismisses Japan whaling protests

By James Grubel

CANBERRA, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Australia will continue to photograph Japan's whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Sunday, despite Japan's warning of a diplomatic protest over Australia's tough anti-whaling stance.

Rudd said while Australia had strong economic, diplomatic and security ties with Japan, it was also important for Australia to continue to oppose Japan's annual whale hunt.

"Calling commercial whaling scientific whaling is not right, it's not accurate," Rudd told Australian television on Sunday.

Japan considers whaling to be a cherished cultural tradition. Despite agreeing to a whaling moratorium in 1986, Japan is allowed to conduct "scientific" whaling, and plans to hunt almost 1,000 minke and fin whales this Antarctic summer.

Australia, a strong opponent of whaling, has sent a customs ship to monitor Japan's whale hunt and to collect evidence for a possible international court challenge against the hunt.

"We think it's the right course of action to collect that evidence," Rudd said.

"The second part of the process is then to accumulate that evidence with a view to forming a decision about whether it's winnable to proceed with a legal case," he said.

Australia angered Tokyo last Thursday when Environment Minister Peter Garrett released photographs of what he said was an adult minke whale and her calf being towed up the ramp of a Japanese factory processing ship in Antarctic waters.

Japan on Friday said it would send a letter of protest over the photographs and Garrett's comment, that he had "a bit of a sick feeling" after seeing the photographs, saying his remarks were not "level-headed". Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said it condemned Australia over the photos, saying the release was "emotional propaganda" designed to mislead the public.

Institute Director General Minoru Morimoto said the two whales in the photographs were not a mother and calf, but were part of a random sampling of the Antarctic minke whale population.

Opinion polls in Japan show strong support for whaling and eating whale meat despite international criticism of whaling.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper poll of more than 2,000 people found 65 percent of respondents said they supported whaling, while 21 percent were opposed. It found 56 percent in favour of eating whale meat and 26 percent were against it.