Anti-whaling activists called on Wednesday for Australia to send a naval vessel to the Southern Ocean after a confrontation in which they said a Japanese whaling ship collided with two of their protest vessels, damaging their flagship.

„The Nisshin Maru has rammed the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker, but both vessels continue to hold their positions,“ Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society which runs the protest boats, said in a statement.