I think it's because of the attempts to "pull the wool" over on those watching the show. Take the captain getting shot. Me and a couple of buddies were watching it for S&G's and we saw that episode. One of our guys was a Corpsman in Falujah (pardon any spelling please) and first thing out of his mouth was "bulls****." He said the captains reaction was all wrong, couple that with a shot @ 100 yards with high seas. And the bullet get's stopped by a badge over the heart? The other thing is if you look at the frame by frame you'll notice no deformity in the jacket he was wearing. Only the badge underneath it. Now you have these guys claiming to have been rammed. If you look at the wake behind the "batboat" you'll see the wake start up and the boat makes a turn directly into the whaler. You couple that with the "Japanese kidnapped us!" cry when they forcibly boarded the ships, it gets to the point where I'm sitting here saying "now what?" These stunts make them lose credibility, and the repeated attempts just make people angry instead of garnering the sympathy they want. These people are asking for it, sooner or later someone is going to oblige them.
Personally I believe whaling is horrible. I am a big conservationist and believe that humanity should be stewards to the land. Use of smart hunting practices and stewardship can accomplish this. Doing stunts like this hurt their cause more then it helps them.
Oh, I most definitely agree that their tactics are counter productive to their stated goal. It just seems some of the posts here are wishing things on them as though they are actual terrorists rather than a silly nuisance. Well, a fanatical nuisance.
Just seemed to me that some people are going overboard a bit in the comments. Not that that is anything out of the ordinary on a message board. I will admit that I have never seen the show, so I can't comment on any of that, though I would be pretty surprised if the Japanese were actually shooting at them.