THE world population of the Antarctic minke whale, the main species hunted by the Japanese, is half what it was thought to be, after a more accurate analysis of the survey numbers.

The new estimate from the International Whaling Commission emerged yesterday after Japan accused Australia of hypocrisy for opposing its whaling while condoning the hunting of dugongs by Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research claimed on Tuesday that the Japanese whaling program was more sustainable than Australia's harvest of dugongs, also know as sea cows.

Institute spokesman Glenn Inwood said the IUCN World Conservation Union had concluded that the hunting of dugongs was unsustainable.

The population of the Antarctic minke whale was estimated by the IWC in the 1980s at between 510,000 and 1.14 million.

Australian government sources said recent research by the IWC, which will be presented at its meeting in June in the Chilean capital of Santiago, put the population at between 40 and 60 per cent of the 1980s numbers - between 200,000 and 680,000.

Numbers were not necessarily lower because of population declines. The latest research is considered more accurate, with earlier surveys overestimating thewhale numbers in areas of pack ice.

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