Anti-whaling activists claimed a small victory in their Antarctic campaign Wednesday with the discovery of a Japanese harpoon ship, as one of their boats limped back to Australia badly damaged.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said its Bob Barker vessel found the Japanese harpoon ship Yushin Maru 3 some 200 nautical miles north of the French Antarctic base Dumont d'Urville.
"The Bob Barker has been out at sea for about four weeks and this is the first whaling ship we've come across," second mate Vincent Burke told AFP from the area, which he said was thick with ice.
Burke said his vessel had been searching for the Japanese factory ship the Nisshin Maru in the hope of preventing it from processing any whale meat when it came across the harpoon boat. (Japan Today)
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