Japan vowed on Thursday to continue its whale hunt in the Southern Ocean after clashes with the militant conservationist Sea Shepherd group, which claimed Tokyo had been forced to end the mission.
"We are keeping our whaling program," an official at Japan's Fisheries Agency told AFP, denying a report that Japan was forced to suspend its whale hunt after collisions with boats crewed by anti-whaling campaigners.
The official also repeated Tokyo's claim that the conservationists had rammed Japanese whaling ship the Nisshin Maru on Wednesday, their worst confrontation in the Southern Ocean in three years.
On Wednesday, the anti-whaling group accused the Japanese side of deliberately colliding with its vessels.
Sea Shepherd captain Paul Watson told the Australian Associated Press news agency that the whalers were refueling at sea in an area where such activities are prohibited by an Antarctic treaty.
"I feel that this is the end of it," he said, pointing to the 18 days remaining in the short whaling season and deriding the Japanese fleet's moves as "like a case of road rage."
A spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said that the ship could not be refueled "due to Sea Shepherd's dangerous activities."
Sea Shepherd is chasing the Japanese fleet hunting whales off Antarctica, as it has done for years in a bid to harass the whalers and prevent the mammals being slaughtered.
Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke has described Japan's whale hunt as cruel and unnecessary but has so far rejected calls to send an Australian government vessel to monitor the hunt.