(CNN) -- Japan says it will hunt whales in the Southern Ocean this winter and will send a Fisheries Agency ship to guard its whalers against promised intervention by a conservation group. "The Fisheries Agency will send a patrol boat and take increased measures to strengthen the protection given to the research whaling ships," Fisheries Minister Michihiko Kano said at a news conference Tuesday. At its annual meeting in July, the International Whaling Commission passed a resolution calling on its member countries "to cooperate to prevent and suppress actions that risk human life and property at sea." Last winter, Japan cut short its planned December-to-April hunt by two months after anti-whaling activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society repeatedly interfered with the whaling vessels.
@highlight
Japan's hunt last winter was cut short 2 months due to activists
@highlight
Anti-whaling group says it saved 800 whales
@highlight
Australia's attorney general wants Japan's whaling to stop
In a statement issued last Friday, @placeholder vowed to take on the whaling vessels again.