Anti-whaling activists accused Japanese whalers of ramming and sinking a high-tech protest boat in the frigid Southern Ocean yesterday, as tensions mounted over accusations of “spy flights” mounted from Australia.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said its futuristic powerboat Ady Gil was cut in half by the Japanese security ship Shonan Maru No. 2 as it loitered near the whaling fleet. Whalers said the boat was launching projectiles.
All six crew were rescued, but the A$1.5 million (US$1.37 million) carbon-fiber trimaran was sinking, Sea Shepherd said.
PHOTO: AFP/SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY
“We believe it was deliberate. Our ship had come to a complete stop and they basically came straight down on top of them. They cleaned them up,” the group’s Australian director Jeff Hansen said.
Hansen said the incident occurred after two activist vessels intercepted the Japanese fleet near Antarctica’s Commonwealth Bay. Japan’s government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research said the activists were trying to tangle propellers.
A Japanese Fisheries Ministry official declined to comment on the incident, saying it was still getting information.
Tensions flared as Australia’s government came under pressure from lawmakers to block “spy flights” launched by Japan from Australian airports to foil the activists, who were involved in a ramming incident with the whalers two years ago.
The Sea Shepherd group also unveiled a third “secret” ship to help them pursue and block the Japanese fleet, as influential Australian lawmakers said reconnaissance flights were helping Tokyo breach international anti-whaling conventions.
Japan’s government-backed whaling fleet aims to harpoon up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales, classified as endangered, in the Southern Ocean during the current Southern Hemisphere summer.
Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 treaty. But the Japanese continue to cull whales on grounds that this is for research purposes and to monitor their impact on fish stocks, deflecting criticism from anti-whaling nations like Australia, Britain and New Zealand.
The Ady Gil, a 24m carbon-fiber wave-piercing trimaran that runs on low-emission, renewable fuels, was the latest addition to the Sea Shepherd protest fleet.
The materials and paint on the boat made it difficult for radars to detect, enabling it to sneak up on whaling vessels and disrupt the hunt.
A third vessel, a 1,200 tonne former Norwegian harpoon ship refitted in secret, joined Sea Shepherd yesterday.
A public relations firm based in New Zealand and linked to Japan’s cetacean institute chartered aircraft in Hobart and Western Australia state last month to track the Sea Shepherd flagship Steve Irwin, the Age newspaper said.
“Instead of Australia sending a surveillance vessel to watch the whalers, the Japanese are using Australian soil to watch the whale defenders,” said Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown, whose party wields five key swing votes needed by the government.
The Greens would try to introduce legislation banning whalers’ access to support services when parliament resumed in February, he said, though support in the chamber was uncertain.
“The lawless Japanese whale killers are doing what they want in Australia’s Antarctic Territory waters,” Brown said.
Environmentalists accuse Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of backpedaling on threats of an International Court of Justice whaling challenge to avoid damaging Canberra’s trade ties with Tokyo and slow-moving talks on a free trade pact.
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