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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - A conservation group that has vowed to disrupt Japan's annual whale hunt launched its Antarctic campaign Wednesday by renaming one of its ships after "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, the late environmental campaigner.
The U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says it will use whatever means necessary to block Japan from harvesting up to 50 humpbacks, 935 minkes and 50 fin whales in Antarctic waters as part of an oceanic research program that critics decry as commercial whaling in disguise.
Irwin's widow, Terri, threw her support behind the mission by giving Sea Shepherd permission to rename one of its two flagship vessels after her husband, the TV wildlife program host who died from a stingray attack off Australia's Great Barrier Reef in September 2006.
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