Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Japan lodged a protest with New Zealand’s government over a collision between a Japanese whaling ship and a vessel carrying activists in the Antarctic. New Zealand said it will investigate the incident.

“The Japanese government finds this extremely regrettable,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told reporters today in Tokyo. “As the boat that hit our ship was from New Zealand, we have made a strong protest. We strongly demand that nothing like this occurs again.”

The collision late yesterday damaged the Ady Gil, a powerboat that is part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society protest against Japan’s annual whaling expedition to the Southern Ocean. Six crew members were rescued by another protest vessel and the boat may sink, Sea Shepherd said in a statement.

Japan conducts annual hunts using a rule under a moratorium on whaling agreed in 1986 that allows “lethal research” on the mammals. The hunts are necessary to prove whale populations have recovered enough to justify a return to commercial whaling, the government says.

New Zealand will investigate the collision, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said today.

As the Ady Gil is New Zealand registered, “it’s over to Maritime New Zealand to determine what sort of investigation should occur from here,” McCully told Radio New Zealand.

McCully wrote to all parties late last year urging them to show “restraint” about protests and responses that could put lives at risk.

The collision “almost realizes our worst fears,” he said today. “They’re obviously not listening.”

Japan spends as much as $60 million a year on its whaling program, including expeditions to Antarctica, and relies on sales of whale meat to fund 85 percent of its costs.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tracy Withers in Wellington at twithers@bloomberg.net; Takashi Hirokawa in Tokyo at thirokawa@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 6, 2010 23:37 EST