Canon Inc., the world's largest maker of digital cameras, has declined a request from Greenpeace International to condemn the government's expedition to hunt whales in the Southern Ocean.

Responding to the Greenpeace request to Canon President Fujio Mitarai, who also heads Japan's largest business lobby, Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), Canon said in a letter last week it would not sign a statement condemning the annual hunt to kill minke and fin whales in the Antarctic.

"Scientific opinion about research whaling is different among the Japanese, various governments and NGOs," the letter said. "For us as a single company to declare an opinion on this topic is beyond our scope."

Greenpeace's strategy of targeting a Japanese company with significant overseas sales mirrors similar efforts by other conservation groups in recent years. Three of Japan's largest fish companies, Kyokuyo Co., Maruha Group Inc. and Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd., stopped sales of whale meat in Japan after groups led by the Humane Society International called on U.S. consumers to boycott their products.

Greenpeace began a campaign last Thursday urging Canon to reverse its stance, calling on Canon customers to "urge the company to condemn" the whaling expeditions. The campaign doesn't include a boycott of Canon products or other Japanese brands, because a boycott "would harm the wrong people."

"We believe that when a corporation draws income and brand value from association with environmental causes, they have a responsibility to speak out on those issues," Greenpeace said on its Web Site.

Greenpeace Japan spokesman Junichi Sato said the nongovernment organization had no plans to name other Japanese companies in the campaign because the point was to use Mitarai's leverage with Japanese industry.

"We are trying to put pressure on Japanese industry as a whole and Mitarai's position makes him responsible for Japanese business interests outside Japan," Sato said in a telephone interview Friday.

Canon said in its letter to Greenpeace that it is committed to the protection of endangered wildlife and that the company has published advertisements that feature "endangered species" in National Geographic magazine since 1981.

Japan is under increasing pressure from governments and environmental groups to stop hunting whales. The government earlier this year abandoned a plan to resume hunting humpback whales under pressure from Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and the European Union.

In recent weeks the issue has been taken up by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda as well as Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, all of whom have stated the research whaling is legal.

Fukuda called for calm over whaling after a standoff between the Japanese fleet and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the Southern Ocean. Two activists were detained for three days after boarding a whaling ship Jan. 15.

"I don't think it is right for the discussions to turn emotional, especially with the recent violent act against the Japanese research vessel," Fukuda told the BBC on Thursday, according to its Web site. "So we should try to continue with our efforts to try to explain that we are engaged in this research whaling activity from a scientific viewpoint."

Research whaling is allowed under the terms of a global moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Japan had planned to kill as many as 1,035 whales in the current expedition, the most since it began what it calls scientific hunts in 1987. The whaling fleet set sail from Japan on Nov. 18.