Japanese whaler and protest ship collide
An anti-whaling group’s boat collided twice with a Japanese whale-spotting vessel in Antarctic waters today, tearing a three-foot gash in the protest ship, the Sea Shepherd conservation group said.
The Japanese ship Kaiko Maru issued a distress signal after the clash, but had not responded to Sea Shepherd’s offer of help, said the group’s founder, Paul Watson.
Officials from Japan’s Fisheries Agency and the Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean Research were not immediately available for comment.
New Zealand’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre said it had received a distress call from a Japanese vessel, and authorities were investigating.
Watson said the Sea Shepherd’s ship, the Robert Hunter, was hit twice by the Kaiko Maru after the conservationists tried to stop the Japanese ship from reaching a pod of whales.
“Robert Hunter was struck in the stern. We have a three-foot gash in the hull above the waterline,” he said on the Farley Mowat, a second Sea Shepherd ship in the area.
No injuries were reported aboard the Robert Hunter.
Watson said the Kaiko Maru issued a distress signal after the collision.
In communications between the two ships, Japanese crew members had indicated the ship had a problem with a “vibrating” propeller, Watson said.
“We responded to the distress signal and offered to send down a diver,” but the Japanese had not responded, he said.
The three ships were still near each other, while other Japanese whaling ships were about 20 miles away, Watson said.
“The situation clearly is dangerous,” he said.
Last Friday, two Sea Shepherd members went missing aboard small inflatable boat for several hours during a confrontation with another Japanese whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru, before being found safe.
The conservationists had dumped foul-smelling acid on the whaling ship, prompting Japanese officials to label them “terrorists” after two crew members were slightly injured.
Japanese ships left port in November for a six-month whaling expedition in the Antarctic as part of a scientific whaling programme, conducted within the rules of the International Whaling Commission.
Tokyo maintains that whaling is a national tradition and a vital part of its food culture, and is pushing for a limited resumption of hunts, arguing that whale stocks have sufficiently recovered since 1986 when a global moratorium on commercial whaling was introduced.
Many other countries and conservation groups say Japan’s scientific programme is a veil for commercial whaling.
