Greenpeace attempts to stop whalers

JAPANESE whalers used water cannons to drive off Greenpeace protesters yesterday as the environmental activists battled to prevent a Japanese ship from loading a harpooned whale in the Southern Ocean.

Also yesterday, Norway increased the quota for its commercial whale hunts by more than 30% to the highest level since hunts resumed in 1993.

Speaking from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise off the Antarctic coast, expedition leader Shane Rattenbury said the Sunrise and sister ship Esperanza had tracked down the Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru.