An Australian-led Antarctic whale expedition has returned to New Zealand after spending six weeks in the Southern Ocean.

The scientists deployed satellite tags and took biopsy samples, and collected a lot of other valuable scientific data on at least nine species of whales and dolphins including; humpback, Antarctic minke, sei, sperm, fin, killer, southern bottlenose whales and hourglass dolphins.

Dubbed the largest collaborative whale research voyage with 17 scientists from Australia, New Zealand and France, the findings of the research will be presented to the International Whaling Commission in June to show that that through clever use of existing technologies scientists can learn a lot about whales without having to kill them. The voyage was the first for the Southern Ocean Research Partnership (SORP) and concentrated mainly on humpback and Antarctic minke whales - species being targeted by Japanese whalers who claim they have to kill 1000 whales each year "for research".

The satellite transponders will send back important information on feeding behaviour and, later, as winter begins track the whales from the Southern Ocean to breeding grounds. Biopsies and photo identification of humpback whales collected will increase understanding of linkages between the southern feeding grounds and the breeding grounds of the south west Pacific and eastern Australia. The Balleny Islands in the Ross Sea region where the research was done were alive with the sounds of humpbacks and blue whales. Buoys fitted with microphones to detect whale calls and transmit them back to the ship, successfully recorded humpback whales, along with sperm, blue and fin whales.

The Japanese government-sponsored Institute of Cetacean Research has already said the work done by SORP will have little impact on their annual slaughter. New Zealand spokesman for the institute, Glen Inwood recently outraged conservation groups with his comment that the only way you can get certain information, birthing data, how old a whale is when she gives birth, the number of times that a whale gives birth within its lifetime is through killing them.