The US arm of the radical conservation group Sea Shepherd will be prevented from interfering with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean.
But that doesn't mean the end of the whaling stand offs between other Sea Shepherd groups and Japan in the Antarctic.
This week, Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research and a whale ship operator announced they'd reached an agreement with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and its founder Paul Watson.
``What it means is Sea Shepherd USA cannot contribute money toward the Southern Ocean campaign, cannot be involved in the Southern Ocean campaign, and that's fine," Watson said.
``Whether Sea Shepherd Australia or Sea Shepherd Global ... if they intend to return to the Southern Ocean that's their business, it's not ours and I can't control them,'' he said of the settlement.
Sea Shepherd Global media director Heather Stimmler said all of its entities around the world - except those in the United States - would continue to oppose what it believes is illegal Japanese whaling in the Antarctic.
The Institute of Cetacean Research, which studies whales, also is paying an undisclosed amount to the anti-whaling group on the condition the money won't be transferred to its affiliates elsewhere, including in Australia, one of the most active in attacking Japanese whalers during their hunts in the Antarctic.
Officials in Japan are hoping the funding restriction will somehow limit the extent of Sea Shepherd's activities in Australia.
Agriculture Minister Yuji Yamamoto said the agreement "that would contribute to the safety of the research whaling fleet.'
However he said Japanese whalers should continue to use caution and be aware there were staunch opponents of whaling.
The International Whaling Commission imposed a commercial ban on whaling in 1986, but Japan has continued to kill whales under an exemption for what the country says is research.
