Australian federal government on Friday welcomed Japan's decision to halt its Antarctic whaling mission for the rest of the season.
Japanese Fisheries Minister Michihiko Kano announced Japan will halt its Antarctic whaling mission for the rest of the season because of harassment by environmentalists on the high seas.
Kano said Japan will call its harpoon ships home "to ensure the safety of the whaling crew amid the continuing harassment by anti- whaling group Sea Shepherd."
Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke on Friday welcomed the announcement.
"I'm glad this season is over and Australia doesn't believe there should ever be another whaling season again," Burke told reporters in Canberra on Friday.
In recent years, international anti-whaling organization, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's activists have harassed whalers, moving their ships and inflatable boats between the harpoon vessels and whales and throwing stink and paint bombs at the whaling ships.
Sea Shepherd hailed Japan's decision as "great news" and pledged to stop any future hunts.
"It's great news. We will, however, stay with the Japanese ships until they return north and make sure that they're out of the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary," Captain Paul Watson, who is on board the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin in the Ross Sea told ABC News on Friday.
Meanwhile, Greens leader Bob Brown said the announcement makes Friday a historic day in the fight against whale hunters.
"This is just fabulous news," Brown told Australia Associated Press in Sydney. "It's going to have that champagne off the ice and a glass raised to Sea Shepherd and to the great whales, our great mammals of the ocean."
Senator Brown said the Sea Shepherd crew should be given an Order of Australia chivalry to recognize their courageous.
He went on to say that Feb. 9, 2011 saw the last whale killed by the Japanese fleet in this season, and he hoped history records the day as the last whale ever killed in the southern hemisphere for commercial purposes.
Japan kills hundreds of whales every year under a loophole in a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling that allows lethal research. The nation has long defended its hunts as part of its culture.
Last year, Australia filed a complaint against Japan at the world court in The Hague to stop Southern Ocean scientific whaling. The decision is expected to come in 2013 or later.