Activist ship hits Japanese whaling vessel

Posted on | February 9, 2009 | Comments Off

Japanese whalers claim activists threw rancid butter at the whaling fleet.

A group of radical anti-whaling activists said they were pelted with bloody chunks of whale meat and blubber.

Sounds like an ugly dinner party?

SYDNEY (AFP) – Ships carrying militant environmental activists and Japanese whalers collided during a high seas clash in Antarctic waters Friday, with each side blaming the other.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said it had no choice but to hit the Yushin Maru No.2 after the Japanese whaling vessel made a sudden attempt to block the path of activist ship the Steve Irwin.

“We’ve been in pretty intense confrontations with them for the past few days,” Paul Watson, captain of the Steve Irwin, told AFP.

“We were in the process of blocking the transfer (of a dead whale) from the Yushin Maru No.2 when the Yushin Maru No.1 moved directly in front of the bow to block us,” he said.

“I could not turn to starboard without hitting the Yushin Maru No.1. I tried to back down but the movement of the Yushin Maru No.2 made the collision unavoidable.”

But Tokyo’s government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) blamed Sea Shepherd for the collision, saying its vessel “came forward and rammed the Yushin Maru No. 2 in the stern.”

“While no one was injured, the circumstances could have been much worse, even fatal,” ICR head Minoru Morimoto said.

Toshinori Uoya, a Fisheries Agency official, disputed Sea Shepherd’s account and said it was impossible for the Japanese ships to make sudden movements to produce a collision.

“If they keep tailing us, it’s no surprise that there would be a collision,” Uoya told AFP.

“This is a very dangerous activity and our country is doing legitimate research based on the rules of the IWC (International Whaling Commission),” he said.

Sea Shepherd activity “is illegal and it puts in danger the lives of the crew members and damages our property. It is unforgivable,” he said.

The militant conservationists have been harassing the whalers on their annual hunts in the Antarctic for the past five years, but Watson said he had “never seen them (the Japanese whalers) this aggressive.”

“They are obviously frustrated at the money they are losing and they have been ordered to do whatever needs to be done in order to prevent us from preventing them killing whales.”

Earlier this week the group said two activists had been injured when they were blasted with high-pressure hoses and pelted with metal balls.

In turn, the militant environmental group has been accused by Japan of “eco-terrorism” for its attempts to disrupt the annual hunt.

An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but Japan kills hundreds each year using a loophole that allows “lethal research” on the ocean giants.

Japan makes no secret that the meat ends up on dinner tables, and accuses Western nations of not respecting its culture.

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