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Tokyo: Anti-whaling group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Groupsaid its leader was shot in the chest by a member of Japan's Coast Guard during a clash with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.
Japan has denied the claims saying no live bullets were fired. Paul Watson and other activists on their vessel, Steve Irwin, were throwing rotten butter at the whalers to try to prevent them from harpooning whales when he was shot today in his bullet proof jacket, the group said.
Sea Shepherd posted photos of the incident on its Web Site.
"The government will have to take measures that are necessary,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said today in Tokyo. "We may have to launch tear gas canisters.''
Sea Shepherd said two other activists were injured when Japanese coast guard officials threw what it said were flash grenades.
Japan's government told the Australian embassy in Tokyo a crew member of the Nisshin Maru, the whaling fleet's factory ship, fired "warning shots'' during the clash in the Southern Ocean, Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said in a statement on Friday.
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