By Stephen Leahy

[Update Jan 15 2008. Japanese whalers are on the hunt right now with activists in hot pursuit just like last year. Little has changed from the situation documented in this 2006 story. SL]

TORONTO, Dec 28 (Tierramérica) – Japan’s controversial whaling fleet has arrived in the Southern Ocean, around Antarctica, and anti-whaling activists are promising to ram and sink any vessels attempting to kill whales.

“What the Japanese whalers are doing is illegal under the United Nations World Charter for Nature,” said Paul Watson founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

“It’s also murder in my personal opinion,” Watson told Tierramérica from Melbourne, Australia, where his ship, the Farley Mowat, was docked. Continue reading →