3 Japanese whalers injured in protest

TOKYO » Anti-whaling activists hurled containers of rotten butter at a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctic waters today, lightly injuring at least three crew members, Japan's government said.

Protesters aboard a boat operated by Sea Shepherd threw the objects -- containing butyric acid, produced by rotting butter -- at the Nisshin Maru whaling ship, which is conducting Japan's research whaling program.

Japan planned to issue a formal protest to the Netherlands, which licenses the activist boat, Itsunori Onodera, senior vice minister for foreign affairs, said at a small whaling conference that Japan was hosting in Tokyo today to lobby African and Asian nations to support its pro-whaling position.

Sea Shepherd and other anti-whaling protesters have continually harassed the Japanese whaling fleet in an effort to interfere with the hunt. Japan kills about 1,000 whales every year under an internationally sanctioned research program.