Conservationists power-hosed by Antarctic whalers

JAPANESE whalers blasted water from a cannon at conservationists who hurled bottles of rancid butter and paint during a clash in frigid Antarctic waters yesterday.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society accused the whalers of throwing hunks of metal and golf balls at its members, lightly injuring two activists, but Japanese officials said only a water cannon was used.

The group — which routinely harasses the Japanese whaling fleet during its annual hunt in the Antarctic Ocean — sent a helicopter and two inflatable boats toward a Japanese harpoon ship early yesterday in heavy seas about 2,000 miles south-east of the Australian state of Tasmania, said Paul Watson, the group’s leader.

Japan, which has described the Sea Shepherd protesters as terrorists, plans to harvest up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales this season. Under International Whaling Commission rules, the mammals may be killed for research, but not for commercial purposes. Opponents say that the Japanese research expeditions are simply a coverfor commercial whaling, which was banned in 1986.

The Japanese government lodged a protest with the governments of Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands where the Sea Shepherd’s vessel, Steve Irwin, is registered.