I caught a clip of some Japanese Whaling ships being rammed by environmentalists while watching the BBC News the other day and decided to try and round up the clip. This isn’t the first time that these confrontations have happened and they most certainly will not be the last. Essentially the Japanese use research vessels that go out and catch a little less than a thousand whales a year for research, however, the meat normally ends up in restaurants around Japan after the research is complete, which doesn’t sit well with foreign environmentalists who believe they are conducting this whaling illegally. When you get two groups that don’t agree and they both have ships, here’s what might happen…

That is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s flagship vessel, the Steve Irwin, ramming into one of the three harpooning vessels off the coast of Antarctica. As of Feb. 9th they’ve called off their disruption campaign, but vow to be back next year with a larger, faster, boat.

And here’s a link to the BBC Clip I saw, though the BBC doesn’t allow embedding of their videos, so you’ll have to click to head over and watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar7×5_sVpUU

How do you feel about the Japanese Whalers? Have you ever eaten the fruits of their “research”?