MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Whale kill photos misleading, Japanese say

Japanese says the pictured pair are not a mother and her calf. <br>(<i>Australian Customs Service)

The Japanese body responsible for the annual whale kill in the Southern Ocean says the Australian media is using emotional propaganda to mislead the public.

A photo released by the Federal Government this morning showed a harpooned adult female minke whale and a smaller calf being hauled into a whaling ship. Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the pair were mother and calf. But the director-general of Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, Minoru Morimoto, says this is not true. "The photographs taken by the Oceanic Viking and which major Australian newspapers published today shows two minke whales, but they are not a mother and her calf as claimed by the media," he said. "Our research program requires random sampling of the Antarctic population, and therefore there will be a range of sizes. "It is necessary to conduct random sampling of the Antarctic minke population to obtain accurate statistical data." Meanwhile the Federal Opposition is calling on the Government to work for a global whaling sanctuary. The Liberal's Environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, has welcomed the release of images and video from the customs ship the Oceanic Viking but says the Government should do more to protect the animals. "The next great step forward is the International Whaling Commission and the push for a global whale sanctuary," he said. "We will be pushing as an alternative government for a global whale sanctuary. "Let's have the fight, let's have the battle, let's work to create a global whale sanctuary to protect these creatures for all the world for all time." Mr Hunt says the photos and videos of whales being killed are powerful images and should have been released earlier. "We think that this video is not just useful but fundamentally powerful and it was wrong to withhold it, it was wrong to keep it from the Australian courts," he said. "It is right now to release it and I'm pleased and I offer my bipartisan thanks albeit noting they were late in doing it."