Reuters 27 Dec 08;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has said it achieved its aim of forcing Japan's whaling fleet out of Antarctic waters claimed by Australia.
In a statement on its website (www.seashepherd.org), the U.S.-based group said its ship, the Steve Irwin, had forced the fleet into waters off the Ross Dependency, which is a New Zealand possession.
Australia has declared an 'economic exclusion zone', known by the letters "EEZ," in waters off the coast of its Antarctic territories, and an Australian court order bans whaling there.
Sea Shepherd has said it is enforcing that order by pursuing Japan's whaling fleet, which is in the area for an annual hunt to kill around 900 whales.
However, Japan does not recognize the zone and says its whaling fleet is in international waters.
In the statement, dated Saturday, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson promised his organization would continue its pursuit of the Japanese fleet.
"The good news is that they are no longer whaling in Australian waters and they only managed to hunt in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory for about a week before being forced to flee the Australian EEZ," the statement said.
"They are now in the waters of the Ross dependency and the Steve Irwin is in pursuit."
Watson said this was "bad news" for whales in waters south of New Zealand.
Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs the hunt, has accused Sea Shepherd of "eco-terrorism" and of ramming its vessel the Kaiko Maru during a protest action last Friday. Sea Shepherd has blamed the Japanese for the collision.
In a video of the incident released on its website (www.icrwhale.org), the organization showed the crew of the Japanese ship warning Sea Shepherd in English that its protesters would be treated as "illegal intruders under Japanese law" if they tried to board.
During the last whaling season, two Sea Shepherd activists were briefly held on a Japanese vessel they boarded during a protest action.
Despite an international moratorium on whaling since 1986, Japan justifies the hunt on the grounds that its whaling is for "scientific" purposes.
Much of the meat ends up on supermarket shelves.
(Editing by Sami Aboudi)
Activists attack Japanese whalers with stink bombs
Yahoo News 27 Dec 08;
TOKYO (AFP) – Militant environmentalists said they had pelted stink bombs at a Japanese whaling ship in Australian waters in their latest bid to disrupt hunting of the protected creatures.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said it "pursued and delivered 10 bottles of rotten butter and 15 bottles of a methyl cellulose and indelible dye mixture" to the Kaiko Maru vessel Friday evening.
A Japanese government-backed whaling body claimed that the activists' ship rammed into the left side of the Japanese vessel, damaging a bulwark.
"We cannot tolerate disruptive activities that threaten the safety of the crew members," Minoru Morimoto, head of the Institute of Cetacean Research, which carries out Japan's whale hunting operations, said in a statement.
Sea Sepherd said in an online statement however it was the Japanese ship that "steered hard" and struck the group's ship "Steve Irwin", although neither vessel suffered serious damage.
Paul Watson, the captain of the activists' ship, said in the statement that his crew was trying to push the Japanese whalers out of Australian waters. Sea Shepherd is an international group with headquarters in the United States and Australia.
Japan kills hundreds of whales a year in the name of research despite an international moratorium on commercial whaling.
Tokyo makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up on dinner tables and accuses Westerners of insensitivity to its whaling culture.
For the past four years Watson has led a Sea Shepherd vessel trying to impede the whaling ships during their hunting season.
Watson claimed earlier this year that his ship's hounding of the Japanese whalers last season had saved the lives of 500 of the giant mammals.
But the activists' repeated attacks have led Japan to label them as "terrorists."
After an earlier attempt to pelt a Japanese harpoon boat with stink bombs, Watson told AFP on Monday that the activists would continue trying to hamper the whalers.
"We will just harass them, blockade them, do everything to prevent them from resuming whaling," he said at the time.
"Most likely they will run and we will chase and they'll run and we'll chase and that's fine. As long as they are running they are not killing whales."
