14 DAY TRIAL // An official communicate on Sea Shepherd's website announces that the organization's flagship, the Steve Irwin, collided with the Japanese industrial whaling ship Kaiko Maru, just 90 miles west of the New Zealand Zone. During the protest, the environmental activists threw 10 bottles containing rotten butter and 15 bottles with a methyl cellulose and indelible dye mixture aboard the whaler, covering it in a terrible smell. Though the Japanese ship rammed the Steve Irwin, both vessels registered only minimal damage.
"Our objective now is to chase them out of Australia's Economic Exclusion Zone. I have a chart here and it clearly states that these waters are Australian EEZ. There is an Australian Federal Court Order specifically prohibiting these ships from whaling in these waters. We have informed the whalers they are in contempt of this Court ruling," explains Paul Watson, the captain of the flagship and leader of Sea Shepherd.
"We still have them on the run and we intend to keep them on the run for as long as our fuel resources allow," he adds. The Steve Irwin has been in pursuit of the Japanese whaling fleet for more than a week, pushing them further east, out of the Australian Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ), where whaling is expressly prohibited.
However, Tokyo authorities do not recognize the ruling and claim that they are fishing in international waters. Sea Shepherd-released photographs show the Kaiko Maru in white, bearing a large inscription on its side, which says “Research”, as the Japanese government doesn't officially admit that it's breaking the 1986 UN Charter, stipulating that the commercial hunt of whales is prohibited worldwide.
Most of the meat from the 900+ whales that the fleet has to cull each year reaches the shelves of supermarkets in Japan, which prompted endless criticism from the international community to the Japanese government. However, they remain oblivious, and, furthermore, arrest and prosecute those who bring scandals regarding whale meat into the spotlight.
