Sea Shepherd Marks Eight Years Defending Whales in Southern Ocean

By B. McPherson




The Sea shepherd Society’s eighth campaign in the Southern Ocean, Operation Divine Wind, has been dogging the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru.

Operation Divine Wind has three vessels in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary this season – Bob Barker, Steve Irwin and the Brigette Bardot – along with helicopter capability. A new, high tech weapon is being used to good effect as well – a drone.

While the Japanese government maintains that they are not conducting commercial whaling operations and have painted “Research” on the sides of their vessels, many do not believe their stand. Whale meat has found its way to the commercial markets in Japan and offers of help from non-whaling nations to assist in no-kill research have been rebuffed. The whaling fleet has a target of about 1 000 dead whales per year.

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica has been designated a whale sanctuary since 1994. Research is allowed in the area and this loophole is being exploited by the heavily subsidized whaling fleet. While many nations have respected the sanctuary and criticize the Japanese government for its slaughter of whales, no direct action against the killing has been taken except by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. They have engaged in dangerous encounters with the harpoon vessels and factory ship trying to foul equipment, launching stink bombs onto their decks and in one case attempting to serve arrest papers on a ship’s captain by boarding his vessel. This landed the Society’s member in a Japanese courtroom.

Last year the persistent attention of the conservationists could not prevent all the deaths of the whales, but they did reduce the slaughter and raised the expenses of the whalers as well as forcing them to cut short their time in the Antarctic wildlife sanctuary.

“The whalers survive because of massive Japanese government subsidies and much of this subsidy was allocated from the tsunami earthquake defense fund. This whale hunt is now a glorified, state sponsored, welfare project existing only to appease extreme right wing nationalist elements in Japan. We are now dealing with fanatics seeking to kill whales for no other reason than nationalistic pride.” Paul Watson

Comments

  1. Billie Greenwood6 January 2012 at 16:41

    I'm really grateful for the Sea Shepherd Society's devotion and sacrifice. It is crazy how this has turned into a contest of defiance. Thanks for keeping me appraised on the whaling season once again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MaBear7 January 2012 at 09:07

    People all over the world are trying to save stranded whales and other. Just so the japanese kill them. In this day and age when we understand about extinction, governments should be changing laws in the waters and on the lands to change all hunting regulations. They should be working together to change these laws. No people, no matter the color of skin or hunting rights they think they have should be decimating populations of wildlife. These governments and people should be ashamed of what they are doing. The times have changed and the governments should change with it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MaBear8 January 2012 at 09:58

    I take back what I said about governments working together to change things. I should know better by now. They dont care what happens to this earth, to the oceans and lands. Only until people fight back will they do a little, and that little really has not been good enough. The first thing on politians minds and agenda are how to make more money or the excuse of how to keep the economy going. How many whales or dolphins do the japenese need? Wildlife, mammels, are not a commodity like running shoes. We need to fight back. Trophy hunters should be strung up alive and trophy hunting is what its all about. Natives here in canada and elsewhere even in africa, do not own the land and they certainly do not own the wildlife. Whoever gave the natives hunting rights should have been strung up. Now we have assholes going out and decimating herds of island roosevelt elk, carribou in alaska and leaving them to rot and for what reason? Because of their arrogence. Aggressive conceit. and trophy hunters and poachers taking black bears, grizzly, wolves and whatever else they want to. Thats another arrogence. because the governments dont want to change anything, I think it would be good to get rid of the government and let the people vote on these serious issues. What good are they doing? They throw away our money! Hard earned money at that! That they dont give a damn about. They dont care enough! We should be making the laws. People should be able to vote on every issue. We should have a way where we can vote every day of the week on everything from jobs to roads to cleaning the air we breath to protecting the land,oceans and wildlife. So how do we go about getting rid of the governments? Especially corrupt governments first they have to go. That takes revolutions in those countrys, and possiably here as well. So the people have to rise up. Does democracy really work? Our oceans are dying. Sainer fishing boats take way too much to stock big corps like jimmy pattersons save ons. My grandfather sent letter after letter to the canadian government for years he wrote of how the drag nets would destroy the bottom of the ocean floor, disrupting the food chain if not killing it. I dont think any of them paid much attention. So much for democracy.
    For years its been coming, the pollution, the extinction, but if it wasnt for brave people going out there and doing something about it we would have lost already, we have to continue the fight and if anyone else out there is willing to set something else in motion like getting rid of governments for the health of the planet please post. It is time we got tougher. We are on the edge of losing it all.
    Money and politics or living with less and a healthy beautiful world, we know what people want.

    ReplyDelete

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