Freed activist Paul Watson vows to 'end whaling worldwide'

Animal rights activist Paul Watson, freed this week from detention in Denmark, vowed on Saturday to end whale hunting worldwide and to stop Japan if it tried to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Watson, a 74-year-old Canadian-American, returned to France on Friday after spending five months in detention in the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland due to an extradition demand from Japan.

"One way or the other we are going to end whaling worldwide," Watson told reporters in central Paris where several hundred supporters had gathered to greet him.

"We need to learn to live on this planet in harmony with all those other species that share this world with us.

"If Japan intends to return to the Southern Ocean we will be there," said the founder of the conservation group Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF).

"We are not protesting Japanese whaling. We are simply requesting they obey the law."

Under international pressure, Japan, one of three countries to conduct commercial whaling along with Iceland and Norway, abandoned these hunts. Since 2019 it has only caught whales in its own waters.

But in May, Japan launched the Kangei Maru, a whaling mother ship.

Activists believe this means Japan intends to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean, although the company operating the vessel has denied this.

"If the Kangei Maru goes to the North Pacific or the Southern Ocean then we will intervene against their illegal operations," said Watson.

He also said he would oppose attempts by Iceland to resume whaling in 2025.

- 'Enormous campaign' -

In the 2000s and 2010s, Sea Shepherd played cat and mouse with Japanese ships that sought to slaughter hundreds of whales every year for "scientific purposes".

But in July, Watson was arrested and detained in Greenland on a 2012 Japanese warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship and injuring a whaler.

He was released on Tuesday after Denmark refused the Japanese extradition request over the 2010 clash with whalers.

Watson told reporters he had turned his incarceration into an "enormous educational campaign".

"Every situation provides an opportunity," he said.

"And we've had five months to focus attention on Japan's illegal whaling operations and also Denmark's continued killing of pilot whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands."

On his release, Watson said he wanted to return to France, where his two young children attend school. He was looking forward to spending Christmas with his family before resuming his campaigns, he said.

His detention generated a high-profile campaign in his support that included prominent activists such as British conservationist Jane Goodall.

French President Emmanuel Macron was among those who spoke out for him and he also enjoyed massive support from the French public.

Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, said Watson had received more than 4,000 letters while in detention -- more than 3,000 of them from France.

"He has received more letters of support from Japanese citizens than from Australians," she added, pointing out that "less than 2 percent of Japanese people eat whale meat".

Watson told reporters: "I am absolutely overjoyed with the support that we received from France.

"But most importantly, I am so happy that so many people in France care about the ocean."