Militant environmental activists said Friday their ship collided with a Japanese whaling vessel during a clash in Antarctic waters, and accused the hunters of unprecedented aggression.
"We've been in pretty intense confrontations with them for the past few days," Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship the Steve Irwin, told AFP.
"We were in the process of blocking the transfer (of a dead whale) from the Yushin Maru No.2 when the Yushin Maru No.1 moved directly in front of the bow to block us," he said.
"I could not turn to starboard without hitting the Yushin Maru No.1. I tried to back down but the movement of the Yushin Maru No.2 made the collision unavoidable."
Watson said there was damage to the harpoon ship's railing, but it was only slight.
Sea Shepherd activists have been tailing Japanese whalers on their annual hunts in the Antarctic for the past five years, but Watson said he had "never seen them this aggressive."
"They are obviously frustrated at the money they are losing and they have been ordered to do whatever needs to be done in order to prevent us from preventing them killing whales."
Earlier this week the group said two activists had been injured when they were blasted with high-pressure hoses and pelted with metal balls.
In turn, the militant environmental group has been accused by Japan of "eco-terrorism" for its attempts to disrupt the annual hunt.
A spokesman for Japan's government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research said he was unaware of the collision, but added it was the "absolute right of any vessel to defend itself against maritime criminals".
"There is nothing about attacking here," the spokesman, Glenn Inwood, told Australia's national AAP news agency.
"It is all about defending the vessels against Sea Shepherd ... and that is all that Japan has been doing."
An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but Japan kills hundreds each year using a loophole that allows "lethal research" on the ocean giants.
Japan makes no secret that the meat ends up on dinner tables, and accuses Western nations of not respecting its culture.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
