An anti-whaling group vowed to resume harassing Japanese whalers as two of its activists were returned to their protest ship after being detained on board a harpoon vessel. The two protesters, held aboard the Japanese whaler in Antarctic waters for two days, were handed over to an Australian customs vessel and later returned to their Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ship.

Australian Benjamin Potts said the Japanese crew had tried to throw him overboard when he and fellow activist, Briton Giles Lane, 35, clambered onto the harpoon ship to protest Japan's whaling program during a high seas chase. The Japanese whaling fleet is on its annual hunt in the icy Antarctic waters. Japan exploits a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling to kill the animals for what it calls scientific research, while admitting the meat from the hunt ends up on dinner plates.