Greenpeace Battles Whalers

The Japanese whalers used water cannons against Greenpeace ships that interfered with a Japanese whaling expedition in the Southern Ocean off of the Antarctic coast.

The Greenpeace ship "Arctic Sunrise" and "Esperanza" had tracked down the Japanese whaling vessel "Nisshin Maru." After the Japanese harpooned a whale, Greenpeace launched inflatable boats, which moved in to prevent the transfer. But, the Japanese fought back with water cannons and one of the inflatables capsized.

"Everyone's fine, we've got everyone back on board and there's no damage done, but it has certainly been a hectic morning," said Shane Rattenbury of Greenpeace.

He said one of the smaller Japanese capture boats later rammed one of the Greenpeace ships to try to push it clear.

Greenpeace intends on tracking the whalers and disrupting their operations. The Japanese claim that its expedition is for research.

Japan plans to kill 900 Minke whales this season as part of what it calls scientific research. But, much of the whale meat ends up on store shelves or in up-scale restaurants, rather than in laboratories. Japan maintains that killing whales helps them study what they eat, among other things.

Paul Watson, a founder of Greenpeace, but now heads his own organization called the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is in transit to the area with 45 volunteers on the his flagship the "Farley Mowat."

"You would think that after a decade of expensive campaigns that Greenpeace would have realized that the Japanese fleet does not give a damn about protests," Watson said. "The Sea Shepherd is not down here to protest, we are down here to enforce international conservation law and to stop the illegal whaling operations of Japan."