Japanese lawyers are lined up to defend incarcerated anti-whaling protester Peter Bethune, but an environmental group still hopes Japanese authorities will send him home.

Researchers say a decline in Ross Sea orcas may be partly due to NZ's deep-sea fishing.

Japanese media have expressed frustration at a NZ activist's anti-whaling protests, with one top newspaper accusing him of terrorism.

John Key says the Govt can not intervene in Japan's legal processes to help anti-whaling campaigner Peter Bethune.

The leader of Australia's Green Party is backing a campaign to free anti-whaling protester Peter Bethune.

Any deal with Japan to allow whaling would have to be very attractive to get New Zealand support, Foreign Minister Murray McCully says.

A diplomatic crisis is looming over an anti-whaling protestor who is reportedly being held in custody on a Japanese whaling vessel.

Japanese whalers have confirmed a New Zealand protester who boarded one of their ships has received medical attention for a knife-wound.

Two Sea Shepherd activist ships say they are in pursuit of the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, exchanging water cannon fire with the whalers.

Something is holding down the herring population of Alaska's Prince William Sound, and marine scientists are tailing some rather large suspects: humpback whales.