'This research expedition covered minke whales only,' Mr Shuya Nakatsuka, chief of the Far Seas Fisheries division at the Fisheries Agency, said. He added that the mission was part of a government research programme.

Greenpeace said the programme was neither scientifically valid nor requested by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which regulates whaling on the high seas.

The haul brings to 22,891 the number of whales hunted by Japan, Iceland, South Korea, Norway and the former Soviet Union on scientific grounds or in objection to a whaling moratorium passed by the IWC in 1987, Greenpeace said.

The 'research', subsidised by the Japanese government at some US$8 million (S$14.1 million) per year for 17 years, has failed to produce anything beyond a steady supply of whale meat - some 2,000 tonnes a year - which is sold on the open market in Japan, Greenpeace said in a statement.

Japan stopped commercial whaling in 1986 in line with a moratorium by the IWC but the nation has been hunting whales since 1987 for what it calls research purposes to gather scientific data to back its claims that whale populations are robust.

Tokyo insists the whale hunt will enable it to study the marine ecosystem by investigating food eaten by whales, among other things. -- AFP