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Environment

Japan to starve anti-whale protesters of fuel

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Militant anti-whaling campaigners vowed more confrontations with Japan’s whaling fleet near Antarctica on Friday, while the whalers aimed to exhaust the protest ships’ fuel supplies to force them out of the area.

A Greenpeace inflatable boat is seen next to Japan's whaling fleet's factory ship Nisshin Maru and hunter vessel Yushin Maru No 2 in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary January 18, 2008. Greenpeace said its protest ship, Esperanza, had successfully stopped Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean after intercepting the fleet's factory processing ship, the Nisshin Maru, at the weekend and chasing it north through heavy seas. REUTERS/Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac/Handout

Whaling was to resume after the return to their ship of two Sea Shepherd Conservation Society activists, who were detained after boarding a Japanese harpoon ship on Tuesday.

Australian Benjamin Potts and Briton Giles Lane were picked up by an Australian fisheries icebreaker from the Yushin Maru No.2 in the Southern Ocean early on Friday and greeted back aboard their protest vessel, Steve Irwin, as heroes.

“They’ve been on a hunger strike since they were taken,” Sea Shepherd spokesman Jonny Vasic told Reuters. “It was well worth the cost of saving whales.”

Potts said Sea Shepherd would continue protests as the Yushin Maru headed back to the rest of the six-ship Japanese fleet to resume whaling until the end of the season next month. Activists chased the whaler after the release of the pair, attempting to foul its propeller.

“We’ll continue to harass the Japanese fleet and prevent them from whaling,” Potts told Australian radio.

But a spokesman for the whaling fleet of three hunting ships, observer vessels and a factory ship said the Japanese were aiming to force the protesters to run out fuel by making them follow the fleet, prompting the protesters return to Australia.

“Eventually they will run out of fuel and both Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd will have to return to Melbourne,” Glenn Inwood told Reuters.

“That’s probably the safest option for everyone as Japan can resume the program in safety,” Inwood said.

Vasic said the Sea Shepherd vessel had about two weeks’ fuel left. Greenpeace wouldn’t say how much longer their protest ship could last.

“We’ll stay down here as long as we can and crawl into port on the last fuel vapors,” Greenpeace chief executive Steve Shallhorn said.

TANKER TACTICS

The Japanese fleet has its own tanker and re-supply ship.

Potts accused the Japanese of using extreme tactics in icy waters capable of killing a person in minutes.

“They intended to throw me overboard,” he told local radio. “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.”

Each side accused the other of behaving like terrorists and Australia acted as intermediary, picking up the pair in a patrol ship gathering photographic evidence for an international legal challenge against Japan’s scientific whaling.

Australian Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus urged Sea Shepherd skipper Paul Watson, who last year threatened to ram the Japanese flagship and collided with a harpoon vessel, to moderate his hardline methods.

“The Australian government repeats its call for calm and for all sides to respect the paramount importance of safety at sea,” Debus told Reuters.

But Vasic said there was no need to switch tactics, despite the chance of another confrontation and an Australian police investigation into the latest incident.

“To us, the people who need to moderate their tactics are the Japanese whalers,” Vasic said.

Asked if Tokyo had handled the confrontation appropriately, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said an examination was underway.

“We need to go over the facts and have relevant authorities review what happened,” Machimura told reporters.

Inwood said the fleet had defenses to ward off more protests including high-pressure hoses used against Lane and Potts.

Watson, a Greenpeace founding father before forming the more radical Sea Shepherd, has accused Greenpeace of doing little other than filming the Japanese to produce “whale snuff flicks.”

Greenpeace’s Shallhorn says Japanese at home have rarely seen whale killing on television until this year. He said the footage “could really turn public opinion very quickly.”

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.

Despite a moratorium on whaling, Japan is allowed an annual “scientific” hunt, arguing whaling is a cherished cultural tradition and the hunt is necessary to study whales. Its fleet has killed 7,000 Antarctic minkes over the past 20 years.

Additional reporting by Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo; Editing by David Fogarty.

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