Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd founder and anti-whaling activist arrested in Greenland

The prominent Canadian-American anti-whaling environmentalist Paul Watson has been arrested in Greenland under an international arrest warrant issued by Japan, police and his foundation said.

In a statement, Greenland police said Watson, who founded Sea Shepherd and was a co-founder of Greenpeace, had been arrested after arriving in Nuuk on the ship John Paul DeJoria. He will be brought before a district court where police will request his detention “before a decision is made on whether he should be extradited to Japan”, they added.

His organisation, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF), said in a statement the arrest took place during a stop-off on a mission to intercept Japan’s newly built factory whaling ship Kangei Maru in the North Pacific.

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CPWF said it believed his arrest was related to a so-called red notice issued over “Watson’s previous anti-whaling interventions in the Antarctic region”.

It added: “This development comes as a surprise since the foundation’s lawyers had reported that the red notice had been withdrawn.”

Watson featured in the reality TV series Whale Wars and has drawn attention for direct-action tactics, including confrontations with whaling ships out at sea.

Related: Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson: ‘I call what we do aggressive non-violence’

The 9,300-tonne whaler, Kangei Maru, which set off from Japan in May, butchers and processes whales caught by smaller vessels. It is equipped with a slipway that can haul 70-ton fin whales, can store up to 600 tons of meat at a time, enabling it to remain at sea for long periods. It is Japan’s first new ship of its kind for more than 70 years.

The new vessel’s range of 13,000km is fuelling suspicion that, five years after Japan abandoned its controversial “scientific” hunts in the Southern Ocean and resumed commercial whaling along its own coastline, Japan is again preparing to slaughter the mammals far from its own shores.

In May, the ship’s owner, Kyodo Senpaku, dismissed those suspicions. “We left the IWC [International Whaling Commission] and so at this point in time it is not under consideration,” said spokesperson Konomu Kubo.

“The government has not indicated that Southern Ocean whaling is in its plans, and our mission is to use the new ship to conduct commercial coastal whaling for at least the next 30 years.”

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

With Justin McCurry and Agence France-Presse