Japan ends whale hunt season early over safety fears

Japan has brought an early end to its whale hunting season in the Antarctic.

American anti-whale activists, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has been chasing the Japanese fleet's mother ship.

The government says there are safety concerns due to the group's repeated harassment. Commercial whaling was banned in 1986 but Japan uses a regulation permitting hunting for scientific research.

The BBC's Roland Buerk said the rights and wrongs of whaling are not debated publicly in Japan.