Activists from the Sea Shepherd group threw containers filled with a mild form of acid made from rotten butter at a Japanese ship.
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But the Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson, aboard their vessel in the Antarctic, denied anyone had been hurt.
He said bottles of butyric acid and envelopes containing "slippery powder" had been thrown at the Nisshin Maru vessel.
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"We filmed and photographed the entire thing. Not a single thing landed anywhere near their crew," he told Australia's AAP news agency.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, although a vocal opponent of Japan's whale hunt, strongly criticised the Sea Shepherd's butter attack.
"I absolutely condemn actions by crew members of any vessel that cause injury - or have the potential to cause injury - to anyone on the high seas," he said in a statement.
Sea Shepherd Ship Steve Irwin Engages Japanese Factory Ship Nisshin Maru In Whale Sanctuary
Aboard the M/Y Steve Irwin Southern Oceans ---The crew on the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin engaged in a confrontation with the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru this morning between 0800 and 1000 Hours.
The Nisshin Maru cannot outrun the Steve Irwin. After a 12 hour chase the Sea Shepherd ship closed the gap and passed alongside the Nisshin Maru.
The crew deployed over two dozen bottles of rotten butter sending a stench throughout the whale killing ship that will remain for days. The crew also threw packets of a slippery chemical onto the deck of the Nisshin Maru. This will make it very difficult to cut up whales. The substance becomes even more slippery with water so it will be difficult to wash it off the decks.
"I guess we can call this non-violent chemical warfare," said Captain Paul Watson. "We only use organic, non-toxic materials designed to harass and obstruct illegal whaling operations."
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."
More respect for whale than human life that's for certain. Listening to an interview with NHK and the swaggering, full of himself SS Captain these are his first words, my translation, "You know in Africa, they shoot poachers...compared to that, acid is baby treatment"So they threw bottles of acid at a manned ship. Some people on the ship got hit by acid. The rest fell in the water. Yeah, these guys really love nature.
bwahahaha
More respect for whale than human life that's for certain. Listening to an interview with NHK and the swaggering, full of himself SS Captain these are his first words, my translation, "You know in Africa, they shoot poachers...compared to that, acid is baby treatment"
Yes, that was what makes it terrorism, or something too indistinguishable to matter. Even if these were not completely random victims, they were not living under the law. It was he making the equivalence as a justification, not me.Poaching is illegal.
Whaling isn't.
Huge difference.
The objective in tossing a foul smelling substance onto the deck of the largest floating slaughterhouse in the world is simple - to discourage the grisly work of mutilating the bodies of some of the largest and gentlest creatures on Earth.
There is no industry on earth as horrifically violent as whaling. Whales die in prolonged unimaginable agony as blunt tipped harpoons smash into their backsides and shred internal organs. They may take up to forty minutes to die as they drown in a mixture of salt water and their own blood. They thrash and roll on the surface of the sea and scream piteously as they look up to see arrogant men gloating over their suffering.
Yet, some people get upset because these same people now have smelly decks and can't continue their foul sadistic work.
For the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, our clients are the whales and we are defending them by intervening to enforce international conservation law in accordance to the principles established by the United Nations World Charter for Nature.
We have not committed any crime. Despite the fabrications of Japanese public relations spin doctors, we have not injured anyone. In fact in over thirty years of high seas interventions the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has never caused an injury nor have we been convicted of a felony.
Yet in that time whalers, sealers, shark finners, turtle poachers and illegal fishermen have assaulted us, beaten us, bloodied us, rammed us, shot at us and threatened our lives but that never seems to be a story of interest because according to our critics we are exposing ourselves voluntarily to the violence of the ocean rapists. In fact, after being assaulted by sealers who struck my crew with clubs and injured them the Canadian police refused to press charges against our attackers because we "had provoked the violence by opposing the killing of seals."
We have had a very successful campaign this year in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. We have saved hundreds of whales. We have chased this Japanese killing fleet for thousands of miles and they will not fill their death quota and they are not very happy about it.
I believe that the Sea Shepherd's basic values are good. They are doing whatever they can to stall the whaling.
The whalers should also videotape capturing a whale and show this to the Japanese people, along with the Sea Shepherd's antics. That would create a balance, but I don't think they want that. It would show that the whalers are much more violent than the protestors.
Don't worry...the rest of the world gets furious about ignorance and onesidedness anyhow and has eventually more sympathy for those, who express this, even if they may not sign the way of them. But as long, as no human is seriously hurt after all, its only fun to watch it and keeps the memory alive, also about these other former mentioned videos. . .
No one was really hurt, so what. . .just pace down a bit, please. No need to become personal.