Anti-Whalers to Chase Japan Fleet for Second Time
Date: 01-Feb-08
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Rob Taylor
"This is a retreat for supplies only. We have not surrendered the Sanctuary to the whale killers," Sea Shepherd protest skipper Paul Watson said after leaving an Australian-declared whale haven in the Southern Ocean.
Watson and his crew may face questions from Australian police after arriving in Melbourne on February 2 over the boarding of a Japanese harpoon boat this month by two activists.
The pair, Australian Benjamin Potts and Briton Giles Lane, were held for three days on the Japanese whale hunter Yushin Maru 2 after boarding it on the high seas, sparking Japanese accusations of piracy and an Australian police investigation.
"The Australian Federal Police are still deciding if they have jurisdiction to investigate," a spokeswoman for Australian Justice Minister Bob Debus said.
The Japanese government accused Canberra of being too lenient on the pair because Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised a tougher approach against Tokyo's cull of close to 1,000 whales.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was due in Japan on Thursday to voice opposition to the hunt to his Japanese counterpart while easing fears of a diplomatic row with one of Canberra's biggest trading partners.
Watson, who last year threatened to ram the Japanese flagship, said his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was unconcerned about a police investigation, as he was confident it was Japan who was in breach of international law.
"I say go ahead," Watson told Reuters from the protest ship Steve Irwin.
The ship, named after the late Australian television naturalist, was being shadowed by a Japanese ocean-going trawler, the Fukoyoshi Maru No.68, partly crewed by coast guard officers monitoring the activists' movements, he said.
"We have new crew flying in from around the world. We have ordered the spare parts we need and we are anxious to return to defend the whales," Watson said. "Our next objective is to shut down Japanese whaling operations for another three weeks."
He said Potts would return to sea with the ship.
Japan plans to hunt almost 1,000 minke and fin whales for research over the Antarctic summer.
Despite a global moratorium on whaling, Japan is allowed an annual "scientific" hunt, arguing whaling is a cherished tradition and the hunt is necessary to study whales. Its fleet has killed 7,000 Antarctic minkes over the past 20 years.
Australia's government has sent a fisheries patrol ship and an aircraft to shadow the Japanese fleet and gather evidence for an international legal challenge to the whaling programme.
(Editing by Roger Crabb)
