Asia-Pacific News

Australian company offers Japanese free whale-watching trips

Dec 14, 2007, 7:51 GMT

Sydney - A Sydney company said Friday it would offer free whale-watching trips to Japanese tourists next year to support Australia's campaign against Japan's continued slaughter of whales in a so-called scientific programme.

Will Ford, manager of Whale Watching Sydney, said few tourists favoured whale hunting once they saw the mammals in the wild.

'There are very few people who come out and do a whale-watching cruise and then go away thinking that it's still okay to eat them or to hunt them,' the AAP news agency quoted him as saying.

He said his company would give free cruises to anyone with a Japanese passport in the hope of educating them about Australians' love of whales and objections to the whaling industry.

'It seems like they don't really have a good idea' Ford said. 'So hopefully the idea is to sort of break through that and show them what is worth being protected.'