Hollywood mermaid Daryl Hannah will be on board a militant conservationist group's ship for a looming confrontation with Japan's whalers in the Antarctic, the captain said Thursday.
"Daryl is joining our group," Sea Shepherd captain Paul Watson was quoted as saying by Australia's national AAP news agency. "She'll be on board -- she's joining us at the end of the month."
Hannah, blonde star of Ron Howard's 1984 mermaid fantasy "Splash" and more recently featured in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies, will be on the Sea Shepherd's flagship the Steve Irwin for its annual joust with the whalers.
The ship was named for the Australian environmentalist and television 'crocodile hunter' killed by a stingray in 2006.
Watson claimed earlier this year that the ship's harassment of the Japanese whalers on their annual mission into the icy waters of the Southern Ocean had saved the lives of 500 of the giant mammals.
Japan uses a loophole in a 1986 whaling moratorium allowing "lethal research" to kill up to 1,000 whales each Southern Hemisphere summer.
The International Whaling Commission has condemned Irwin's tactics, which include boarding the Japanese vessels, but he is unrepentant.
A video game based on the Sea Shepherd's encounters with the whalers is being developed, Watson said after his arrival in the Australian city of Brisbane to prepare for the new campaign.
Hollywood and video games all helped keep the campaign in the spotlight but it was the actions of volunteers on board that saved the lives of thousands of whales, he said.
"This is the fourth year (of the Southern Ocean campaign)," Watson said. "That is three years of lost profits (for Japanese whalers). How much longer can they keep this up?
"This is really the key to stopping them -- to keep making them lose profits."
The Steve Irwin is due to leave Brisbane on December 1 for the Japanese whaling season. Campaigners expect to come up against eight Japanese ships -- six harpoon vessels, a supply ship and a factory ship.
Copyright 2008 AFP American Edition
