Sea Shepherd member Australian Benjamin Potts. Xinhua/AFP Photo)

The two detained anti-whaling activists, held captive after boarding a Japanese whaling boat on Tuesday, were released Friday morning from a Japanese whaling boat near Antarctica.

"The two men were transferred in the early hours of this morning and are safe and well onboard the Oceanic Viking," a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said.

The two Australians, Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane, were picked up from Japanese whale hunter Yushin Maru No.2 and were in good health and good spirits.


Sea Shepherd member Briton Giles Lane. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

Kim McCoy, the executive director of Sea Shepherd which the two detained Australians belonged to, said the group would continue their protest against the Japanese whale hunt once the men are aboard.

A spokesman for the Japanese whalers, Glenn Inwood, says it was a good outcome and the whaling boat was now headed back towards the rest of the Japanese fleet in the Southern Ocean to resume whaling.