No.3-Yushin-Maru

On Feb 8, 2014, at 8.23 p.m. the "Yushin Maru No. 3", one of three harpoon ships of the Japanese whaling fleet, entered the Australian Whale Sanctuary at the 200 nautical mile limit of the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) surrounding Macquarie Island, at approximately 56°38’S, 163°46’E. The vessel entered 4.7 nautical miles into Australian waters in pursuit of Sea Shepherd’s "Bob Barker", before turning around and leaving the sanctuary. The incursion lasted for approximately 30 minutes. By entering Australian waters, the whaling vessel risked contempt proceedings for breaching a 2008 Australian Federal Court injunction, in which the court declared Japan’s whaling operations to be in violation of Australian Federal Law. On Feb 8, Sea Shepherd had notified the Australian Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, that the "Yushin Maru No. 3" was approaching Australia’s EEZ, and requested his intervention on the matter.

Anti-whaling activists claimed a small victory in their Antarctic campaign Wednesday with the discovery of a Japanese harpoon ship, as one of their boats limped back to Australia badly damaged. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said its Bob Barker vessel found the Japanese harpoon ship Yushin Maru 3 some 200 nautical miles north of the French Antarctic base Dumont d'Urville. "The Bob Barker has been out at sea for about four weeks and this is the first whaling ship we've come across," second mate Vincent Burke told AFP from the area, which he said was thick with ice. Burke said his vessel had been searching for the Japanese factory ship the Nisshin Maru in the hope of preventing it from processing any whale meat when it came across the harpoon boat. Read more http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/12497591/anti-whalers-find-japanese-harpoon-ship/