Fleet resumes whale killing

Two activists who jumped on board a Japanese whaling boat off Antarctica have been returned to their ship by Australian officials.

The transfer paved the way for the Japanese fleet to resume killing whales, and for their staunchest opponents to restart their campaign of harassment to stop them.

The Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking shuttled the two activists - 35-year-old Briton Giles Lane and 28-year-old Australian Benjamin Potts - between Japanese harpoon boat Yushin Maru 2 and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s vessel Steve Irwin, officials said.

Mr Potts and Mr Lane, originally from Fulking, near Brighton, West Sussex, triggered the stand-off when they leapt from a dinghy on to the deck of the Japanese ship on Tuesday, and were grabbed by whalers, briefly tied up and then locked in a cabin.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australian police were investigating complaints in connection to the incident to determine if any laws had been broken.

Sea Shepherd had said the pair wanted to deliver an anti-whaling letter and then leave, and accused the whalers of taking their members hostage. Japanese officials said the activists were acting like pirates.

The dispute underscored the high-stakes nature of the contest fought each year in the remote and dangerous seas at the far south of the world, thousands of miles from the possibility of regular emergency or rescue services.

Mr Potts, from Sydney, today accused the whalers of trying to throw him overboard in the minutes immediately after he and his colleague boarded the Yushin Maru.

“Two guys picked me up by the shoulders, and the gunner, the guy that shoots the whales, picked my legs up and they attempted to tip me over,” Mr Potts said.

Mr Potts said he kicked and struggled and managed to stay aboard.

Gabriel Gomez, spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research that organises Japan’s hunts, said it was “absolutely untrue that the Japanese crew assaulted the two, or tried to throw them overboard.”

He said the crew briefly tied up the two intruders because they had no idea of their intentions when they jumped aboard.

“They were carrying backpacks and who knows, they could have been bombs,” Mr Gomez said in Tokyo.

Searches revealed the backpacks contained a change of clothes, toothbrushes and a flask of rum – suggesting the pair did not expect to return immediately, Mr Gomez said.

At issue is Japan’s foray into Antarctica under a programme that allows the killing of whales for scientific research, despite an international ban on commercial whaling. Opponents say Japan has used the loophole to kill nearly 10,000 whales over the past two decades and sell their meat on the commercial market.

An impasse emerged when Japan demanded Sea Shepherd pick up the men in a small boat, keeping the Steve Irwin at a safe distance. Steve Irwin captain Paul Watson balked at any conditions set by the whalers.

The stand-off brought Japan’s whaling fleet to a temporary standstill while officials worked out the details of the men’s transfer.

Mr Gomez said whaling was expected to resume within days, and accused Sea Shepherd activists of launching an attack with bottles of acid on another harpoon boat, the Yushin Maru 3, four hours after the hand-over.

Mr Watson said it was unlikely members of his crew would again try to board one of the Japanese fleet, but vowed that “now we are going to continue on harassing and chasing the Japanese fleet.”

“They are down here illegally killing whales, illegally targeting endangered species... These people are no different than elephant poachers in Africa or tiger poachers in India,” Mr Watson said last night.

A staunch anti-whaling nation, Australia sent the Oceanic Viking to the Antarctic Ocean last month to collect photo and video evidence that might be used in international courts to prove that the programme is a front for commercial whaling.