JAPANESE “Yakuza” gangsters have launched a campaign of intimidation to force a media blackout on the furore surrounding the country’s killing of dolphins and whales, it was claimed yesterday.

Australian surfer Dave Rastovich attracted world headlines after he and conservationists including actress Isabel Lucas travelled to the Japanese fishing village of Taiji last year to protest at its annual dolphin kill.

Rastovich, the global face of surfwear giant Billabong Australia’s environmental campaigns, said the multi-billion dollar Japanese surf industry had been experiencing the “heat” for his anti-whaling activities.

He said he had been told of intimidation from Yakuza thugs - the feared Japanese mafia - who had been visiting Japanese surf shops in search of the outspoken activist.

Activists … Isabel Lucas, Dave Rastovich and his wife Hannah Fraser.

“These are the goons from the fishing industry who are visiting surf stores intimidating people and threatening to punish them financially,” Rastovich said.

“People are feeling it. They are washing their hands of us. They don’t feel safe”.

Rastovich, from northern NSW, is a professional “free surfer” - paid six figures for photos and video shoots rather than competitions - essentially to “live the life”. He enjoys a celebrity following in Japan.

Surfwear companies - keen to distance themselves from the controversy - have threatened to cancel advertising contracts with Japanese surf magazines that promote Rastavich’s anti-whaling stance, sources in the industry have claimed.

MORE