The Japan Coast Guard on March 12 arrested a member of U.S.-based anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for trespassing in connection with his boarding of a whaling fleet vessel in the Antarctic Ocean last month.

New Zealander Peter Bethune, 44, was arrested at 11:16 a.m. March 12 by the coast guard on the Shonan Maru No. 2, which entered Tokyo Bay at around 10:45 a.m.

Bethune climbed aboard the Japanese vessel after approaching apparently unseen on a Jet Ski.

Bethune nodded and did not resist arrest as the warrant was read to him in Japanese, and translated into English, according to Takeo Murui, head of the Tokyo Coast Guard Office who is in charge of the investigation.