Anti-whaling campaigners have vowed to continue targeting Japanese whalers, despite three of their crew members, one of them a South African, being injured this week.

On Tuesday, crew members of the Japanese harpoon vessel Yushin Maru No 2 injured three of the crew on board the Steve Irwin, the flagship of the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Activists claim they were injured by grappling hooks and a bamboo pole and Japan claims the anti-whalers tried to cut ropes and tangle propellers.

Russell Bergh, 35, a camera operator with agency Hot Shot Crews based in Sandton, who was working for Animal Planet, was struck on the right arm and shoulder with an iron grappling hook, which was thrown from the harpoon vessel, resulting in deep bruising.

The society said in a press statement that American crew member Brian Race, 25, of New York, was jabbed twice in the face with a bamboo pole, receiving lacerations above his right eye and on his nose.

French photographer Guillaume Collet, 27, was struck on the right arm and shoulder by an iron grappling hook.

The incident occurred on Tuesday night about 540km north of Mawson Peninsula off the George V Land coast of Antarctica, said the organisation in the statement.

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