The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has denied claims by a Japanese research institute that the environmental group’s ship that was chasing whalers was armed, and that its wreck is now leaking fuel into the Antarctic Ocean.
The Ady Gil, a New-Zealand registered powerboat that is part of Sea Shepherd’s protest against Japan’s annual whaling expedition, sank in Antarctica yesterday after it was involved in a collision with Japan’s Shonan Maru No. 2 on Jan. 6.
The Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research posted a video on its Web site that allegedly shows fuel leaking from the sunken Ady Gil.
“We removed all fuel and lubricants from the ship and notified authorities to let them know it was sinking,” Jeff Hansen, Australian director of the Sea Shepherd, said in a telephone interview.
The whalers “must need some way to try and get the heat off them. It’s completely not true,” he said.
The Institute’s claims that the Ady Gil was armed are also untrue, Hansen said.
Sea Shepherd has filed a piracy claim against the captain and crew of the Shonan Maru No. 2 in the Netherlands, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the environmental group’s legal representative, Liesbeth Zegveld. It will also pursue a civil suit for damages to the Ady Gil, she said.
The sinking is a A$1.5 million (US$1.4 million) loss to Sea Shepherd, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported yesterday, citing founder Paul Watson.
The Australian government hasn’t ruled out the prospect of taking legal action against the Japanese whalers, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in an interview on Channel Nine’s Weekend Today program. The Shonan Maru No. 2 was in Australian waters when the collision occurred.
The Australian government has gathered evidence on Japanese whaling that it is putting to the International Whaling Commission and the Japanese government, Gillard said.
“If we are not going to get a result diplomatically, we have made it very clear that the course of action open to us is international legal action,” she said.
New Zealand officials met with Japan’s ambassador in Wellington to discuss the process of its investigation, and Japan has promised full cooperation, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said yesterday.
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