Japanese whalers hurt in sea battle with activists

TOKYO (Reuters) - Anti-whaling protesters threw bottles containing a pungent chemical at a Japanese whaling ship in a skirmish near Antarctica on Monday, injuring three of the crew, Japan's Fisheries Agency said.

The whalers responded by spraying the activists, on a ship operated by the hardline Sea Shepherd group, with water from four hoses, an agency official said.

The whaling ship "Nisshinmaru" and the Sea Shepherd vessel came within 10 meters (33 ft) of each other during the exchange, which lasted over an hour until the activists had run out of missiles, he said. "This is an act that tries to unfairly harm the safety of a ship and crew that is acting within the law at sea," Japan's top government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference.

"It's an unforgivable act and we protest strongly."

He said Japan would consider lodging a diplomatic protest with Australia, as the activists ship had sailed from an Australian port.

Some of the pungent chemical splashed into the eyes of two Japanese coastguard crew and one whaler causing irritation, said the official, who declined to give the location of the incident for security reasons. The chemical was washed out, but doctors said may cause soreness for some time, he said.

Sea Shepherd said in a statement that its members threw bottles of rotten butter and packets of a slippery chemical, but the substance was organic and non-toxic.

The clash between the 139-crew whaling ship and Sea Shepherd's ship of 33 protesters follows a high-profile standoff in which two anti-whaling activists boarded another Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean in January.

The incident, resolved after the activists were handed over to an Australian fisheries patrol, briefly suspended Japan's plan to kill nearly 1,000 whales during the year's Antarctic summer.