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SYDNEY - THE widow of TV wildlife entertainer 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin said she will launch a non-lethal whale research programme in Antarctic waters next year in an effort to show that Japan's scientific whaling cull is a sham.
Terri Irwin announced on Thursday that the whale watching programme she started to honour her late husband, who died in a freak stingray attack off Australia's Great Barrier Reef in September last year, would expand into scientific research.
'We are working with Oregon State University to do formalised research in the southern hemisphere,' Irwin told the Nine Network television. 'We can actually learn everything the Japanese are learning with lethal research by using non-lethal research.'
Tokyo has staunchly defended its annual cull of more than 1,000 whales as crucial for research purposes, and says killing whales is necessary to gather information about their breeding and migratory habits.
Environmentalists and anti-whaling nations say the slaughter is commercial whaling in disguise.
Japan's whaling fleet is run by a government-backed research institute and operates under a clause in International Whaling Commission rules that allows whales to be killed for scientific purposes, though the meat is sold commercially.
Japan had planned to kill up to 50 endangered humpback whales this season, but backed away from the plan in the face of strong international condemnation.
'We are determined to show the Japanese they can stop all whaling, not just humpbacks,' Irwin said. Further details of the planned research programme were not immediately available.
Earlier this month, Irwin threw her support behind a radical conservation group that has vowed to disrupt Japan's annual whale hunt, allowing the United States-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to rename one of its flagship vessels after her late husband.
Sea Shepherd has come under heavy criticism in recent years for engaging in violent tussles with the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctic waters. -- AP
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