Anti-whaling activists aboard ships in the Southern Ocean say they have located the Japanese whaling fleet and have already clashed with the whalers.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's vessels found the first of the Japanese ships yesterday morning on the edge of the ice at 148 degrees west, 1700 nautical miles southeast of New Zealand. A few hours later the society said the whalers had shot water cannons at them.
The society is chasing the fleet in the hopes of interrupting Japan's annual whale hunt, which kills up to 1000 whales a year. The two sides have clashed violently in the past, including last year, when a Sea Shepherd boat skippered by New Zealander Peter Bethune was sunk after its bow was sheared off in a collision with a whaling ship.
The group's leader Paul Watson said in a statement the whalers had been discovered before they have begun killing the mammals.
Mr Watson said the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker found a harpoon vessel on the edge of the ice at 11am NZT yesterday while the society's flagship Steve Irwin discovered another harpooner six hours later.
He added Sea Shepherd's ship and helicopter search was continuing in an effort find the Nisshin Maru, which he called "Japan's floating abattoir".
"This is fantastic," said Steve Irwin's chief cook, Australian Laura Dakin of Canberra. "For the first time in Sea Shepherd's history, we have located the whalers before they even had a chance to kill a single whale."
Watson gave no indication of what tactics he has planned to interrupt the Japanese whale hunt.
Japan says it is killing whales only for research.
Today Mr Watson was talking to The Associated Press by telephone from his ship when he said the whalers suddenly began blasting one of his group's inflatable boats with a water cannon.
"They just turned their cannons on our Zodiac," Watson told The AP. "Right at this moment."
New Zealand-based Glenn Inwood, spokesman for Japan's Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean Research, which sponsors the whale hunt, said he had no comment.
NZPA