Prominent anti-whaling activist Watson arrested in Greenland

He will be taken to a district court where police will request his detention “before a decision is made on whether to extradite him to Japan,” they added.

Watson, who appeared in the reality TV series “Whale Wars,” founded the organizations Sea Shepherd and Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and attracted attention through direct action tactics, including confrontations with whaling ships on the high seas.

In a statement, the CPWF said her arrest was likely related to a so-called Red Notice issued because of “Watson’s previous anti-whaling activities in the Antarctic region.”

CPWF said in a statement that its ship had come to port to refuel as part of “Operation Kangei Maru, a mission to intercept the newly built Japanese whaling ship Kangei Maru in the North Pacific.”

The 9,300-ton whaling ship, which set sail from Japan in May, butchers and processes whales caught by smaller vessels.

Activists aggressively pursued the Kangei Maru’s predecessor when Japan hunted whales for “scientific” purposes in the Antarctic and North Pacific before 2019.

This year, Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission and now engages in commercial whaling, but only in its own waters and on what it says is a sustainable scale.

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