ANIMAL FORUM

http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/29303/print

Anti-whalerstaken hostage on Japanese whaling ship

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Two anti-whaling activists were taken hostage and
tied to a radar mast of a Japanese whaling vessel in the Southern
Ocean on Tuesday, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said.

Australian Benjamin Potts and Briton Giles Lane, from the Sea Shepherd
vessel Steve Irwin, had boarded the Japanese whaling ship Yashin Maru
No. 2 to hand the captain a letter advising that the crew was
illegally killing whales, said the militant anti-whaling group.

They were successful in delivering the message, but then they were
not allowed to leave and return back to our vessel, Sea Shepherd
spokeswoman Christine Vasic told local media.


The Yushin Maru is now still moving ahead away from us and not
responding to radio contact, she said.

Japans Institute for Cetacean Research confirmed that the two men had
been detained and were being held in a locked room on the whaling
ship, but denied they were tied up.

Any accusations that we have tied them up or assaulted them are
completely untrue, the Institutes director-general, Minoru Morimoto,
said in a statement posted on its Web site.

It is illegal to board another countrys vessels on the high seas. As
a result, at this stage, they are being held in custody while
decisions are made on their future, he said.

The two boarded the Yushin Maru No. 2 after they made attempts to
entangle the screw of the vessel using ropes and throwing bottles of
acid onto the decks.

The Sea Shepherd group called on Australia and Britain to demand the
immediate release of the two crew members.

The anti-whaling group had been searching for the Japanese whaling
fleet in Antarctic waters and said it had discovered five whaling
ships on Tuesday and started pursuing them.

We will hound these poachers for as long as we can and when we catch
up with them we will disable their equipment and do everything
physically possible short of inflicting injury on the crew in order to
stop their illegal activities, Steve Irwin captain Paul Watson said
in a statement.

Watson last year threatened to ram the Japanese flagship and collided
with a whale hunter.

COURT CASE

Environmental group Greenpeace, which has distanced itself from Sea
Shepherds more confrontational tactics, said on Monday it had chased
the flagship of Japans whaling fleet from hunting grounds near
Antarctica.

An Australian fisheries ship is searching for the fleet to gather
photographic evidence for an international court case aimed at
stopping Japans annual scientific hunt.

In a purely symbolic act, but one that could inflame bilateral ties,
an Australian court ruled on Tuesday that a Japanese whaling company
broke environment laws by killing whales in Australias Antarctic
waters.

But the Federal Court of Australia has no jurisdiction outside
Australia and the Japanese government denied the whalers were doing
anything illegal.

According to the International Whaling Commission, what the Japanese
whaling fleet is doing in the South Pacific and Antarctic region is
legal, said Tomohiko Taniguchi, a spokesman at Japans Foreign
Ministry. An official at Japans Fisheries Ministry declined to
comment.

Japan plans to hunt almost 1,000 minke and fin whales for research
over the Antarctic summer, but has abandoned the cull of 50 humpback
whales after international condemnation and a formal diplomatic
protest by 31 nations.

Humane Society International (HSI) launched legal action against Kyodo
Senpaku Kaisha Ltd in 2004, seeking a federal court injunction against
harvesting in the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

Federal court Judge Jim Allsop ruled on Tuesday the whaler had
killed, injured, taken and interfered with Antarctic minke whales and
fin whales and injured, taken and interfered with humpback whales in
the Australian Whale Sanctuary in contravention of...the Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

But the judge conceded there was little chance his ruling could be
enforced.

Japan has long resisted pressure to stop scientific whaling, insisting
whaling is a cherished cultural tradition. Its fleet has killed 7,000
Antarctic minkes over the past 20 years.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo; Editing by Alex
Richardson)

So what? Attached to the mast, did they see any seabirds?