KEY POINTS:
Japanese whalers are proving elusive to find for two separate protest vessels which have set out to track them down in an attempt to save whales.
Japan is planning to kill 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales this summer season under its so-called whale research programme in the Southern Ocean.
It recently pulled plans to also kill 50 humpback whales.
Greenpeace ship Esperanza left Auckland on December 19.
Its expedition leader, Karli Thomas, one of three New Zealanders in a multinational 37-strong crew, told NZPA today that so far they had seen no sign of the six Japanese vessels.
"It's not unusual that it takes a number of weeks to find the fleet.
"It is a large area that we need to search and we need to get into the right place at the right time to find them."
There are more than one million square nautical miles of ocean to search.
Esperenza had also set out without their helicopter, which they would have used for filming and searching for the fleet, as it was unable to be repaired before they left Auckland, Ms Thomas said.
"We've found the fleet in the past without the use of the helicopter, so we're pretty confident that we can still find them."
Greenpeace was also carrying out "non-lethal scientific research" while it was searching, she said.
"We basically woke up this morning in the middle of a humpback feeding frenzy and we've got at least 30 humpbacks around us."
The ship had briefly stopped and was taking photos to find out where they came from and recording whale song, she said.
"There's very little known about the sounds of the whales in the Southern Ocean."
Greenpeace planned to disrupt the whaling by putting themselves and their boats between the whalers' harpoons and the whales to stop them from taking shots, she said.
The Japanese may have taken humpbacks off the list this year, but people should not get complacent, Ms Thomas said.
"They [the Japanese] have said quite clearly that the purpose of their research is to resume commercial whaling. So then these species and possibly more could come into the firing line if that was to happen.
"It's not the time to drop the ball now - governments really need to be taking action at the highest political level to stop that from happening."
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's spokeswoman Kristine Vasic said the ship, the Steve Irwin, was also back down in the Antarctic searching for the Japanese whaling fleet.
The ship started hunting the whalers last year, and set out again early this year after having to stop for about a week for repairs.
- NZPA
