Japan may scrap this year's whale hunt in the Antarctic

A media report in Japan says the government is considering abandoning this year's whale hunt in the Antarctic.

The Asahi newspaper is reporting the annual round of research whaling could be suspended because of the poor condition of the fleet's ageing factory ship.

It says the fisheries agency wants to undertake large-scale repairs to the Nisshin Maru.

The process could take months and may mean the annual whaling hunt in the Southern Ocean, which usually begins in late November or December, could be called off for the year.

If it is, it will be the first time in 25 years the Japanese have not embarked on an annual round of so-called research whaling.

The fisheries agency has told the ABC it will not confirm the media report.

The office of Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke says it is seeking further information on the Japanese newspaper report.

This is a country facing an earthquake and tsunami repair bill of hundreds of billions of dollars, then there's the clean up and compensation bill from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. That's hundreds of billions more.

Japan has the greatest public debt in the industrialised world, so there's not a lot of cash to splash about.

While this whaling program is supposed to be for science and research, the Fisheries Agency is allowed to sell the meat but as I say, very few Japanese actually eat it.

There are stockpiles of whale meat sitting in freezers around the country. I think only 5 per cent of Japanese actually eat it regularly.

So this is a program that's not making any money, it relies for its very survival on government subsidies and the mood here is that the money should be going on the people who need it, people in the tsunami and nuclear zones, not on programs Japan doesn't need.