Protest ship rams Japan whaling vessel

7th February 2009 The Daily

Japanese whalers have accused anti-whaling protest ship the Steve Irwin of ramming their fleet a second time.

The Sea Shepherd ship had rammed the Yushin Maru 3 as the Japanese vessel tried to transfer its catch to the mother ship, Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said in a statement on Friday night.

The Steve Irwin earlier rammed the stern of Yushin Maru 2 as it was hauling on board a minke whale.

The director-general of Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research Minoru Morimoto accused the captain of the Dutch-registered Steve Irwin, Paul Watson, of thumbing his nose at international laws aimed at ensuring safety at sea.

"The Steve Irwin captain is completely ignoring the safety of crews aboard both the Dutch vessel and the Japanese research vessels and engaging in extremely dangerous behaviour," Mr
Morimoto said.

He said the Australian government, which allowed
the Steve Irwin to refuel and reprovision, and the Dutch government
should be held accountable for allowing the protest vessel to commit
serious criminal acts at sea.

"While no one was injured, the circumstances could have been much worse, even fatal," said Mr Morimoto.

Mr
Watson, who each year sails to protest against Japan's whale hunt, said
he was trying to stop a whale being pulled onto a ship when the first
clash happened and blamed the accident on the Japanese.

"The
Yushin Maru No.1 was transferring the whale up the slipway and we were
trying to block that transfer and the Yushin Maru No.2 just shot right
in front of us," Mr Watson told AAP, speaking via satellite phone.

"I couldn't move to starboard without hitting the vessel and I couldn't move to port without hitting them.

"I
tried to back off, but it was too sudden and we ran right into their
stern ... they threw themselves right in front of us. There wasn't
anything we could do."

He said that in the five years his ships
had been confronting the Japanese in Antarctic waters, this season had
seen the most extreme clashes.

"This has certainly been the most
intense confrontation we have had with the Japanese whalers over the
last five campaigns we have had down here," Mr Watson said.

"We
have never seen them 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 from
killing whales."

Mr Watson has accused Japan of using a Long
Range Acoustical Device (LRAD) weapon, which fires loud bursts of
sound, at his crew and a helicopter.

"They used the LRAD twice on
a helicopter. That is an extremely irresponsible thing to do because
they could bring down the aircraft," Mr Watson said.

Mr Watson said he was in no doubt his ship was attacked.

"They
came in and attacked us. We have a lot of cameras on board, and this is
all being recorded ... there is no mistaking what they were doing," he
said.

Japan plans to kill 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales this
season as part of a whaling program it claims is for scientific
research.

Comment was being sought from the Sea Shepherd following the allegation of a second incident.