Government officials from Japan and New Zealand have met in Wellington to discuss who was responsible for a collision between two vessels in the waters off Antarctica.
Sea Shepherd’s carbon-fibre speedboat the Ady Gil was sheared in two in a clash with Japanese whaling ship Shonan Maru 2.
New Zealand is handling an investigation into the incident because the Ady Gil is registered in that country.
The Sea Shepherd is adamant the whaling ship is to blame as the Ady Gil was not in motion at the time of the incident.
But Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) says the Ady Gil was trying to cut off the Shonan Maru 2.
Japanese whalers say their ship was trying to take evasive action when the incident happened, and say whaling ships had been under “continuous attack” from the Ady Gil and another Sea Shepherd vessel in the hours leading up to the collision.
[media id=90 width=610 height=340] [media id=89 width=610 height=340]New Zealand’s foreign minister, Murray McCully, has held a press conference in Auckland, saying the collision should be a wake-up call to both sides as someone could have easily died.
He says he wrote to both Sea Shepherd and Japanese whalers before Christmas, asking them to show some respect and restraint, but it clear no one was listening.
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