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Conservation group Sea Shepherd has announced that it will not attempt to confront Japanese vessels in the Southern Ocean this season, which sees the Asian nation’s whaling fleet sailing to Antarctic waters in the name of “scientific research.”

Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd’s founder, declared that the organization was no longer a match for Japan's surveillance technology. “Japan is now employing military surveillance to watch Sea Shepherd ship movements in real time by satellite and if they know where our ships are at any given moment, they can easily avoid us,” he said.

Watson accused the “hostile governments” of Australia, New Zealand and the US of being “in league” with the Japanese, and failing to meaningfully challenge the Japanese whaling program. “We are trying to do the job that Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other nations should be doing,” he said, “but they are too busy appeasing Japan.”

Australia, which succeeded in winning a temporary ban on Japanese whaling in the International Court of Justice in 2014, pushed back against Captain Watson’s criticism. Australian Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said: “The Government has made representations at the highest level in Japan and we are working hard through the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to end any commercial or so-called ‘scientific’ whaling and promote whale conservation.”

Captain Watson—known for his steely resolve—told the Australian Broadcasting Corp: “We are going to have to find an alternative way to deal with them and we will.”

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