GreenWatch

B. McPherson Sea Shepherd, Australia and other conservationists cheer the court decision Score one for the whales in the Southern Sanctuary. The UN International Court of Justice(ICJ) has ruled that Japan’s whaling fleet is not engaging in scientific research in its forays to the Southern Ocean. Australia brought the matter of the Japanese whalers to the international court to rule whether the killing of whales – up to 1000 each season – was for scientific purposes which is allowed, or for commercial purposes which is not. The Japanese government has maintained that they need to harpoon whales for science. The selling of whale meat in the markets there is simply a by product of the activity. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been front and centre for the past decade trying to stop the slaughter of the cetaceans. This season, the group that has been fighting, literally, the whalers have named their group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Australia due to legal tan...

Operation Divine Wind has successfully curtailed whale slaughter in the Southern Ocean. While they could not stop all the whale kills, they drastically reduced the number of deaths. The Japanese have announced that they killed 266 minke and one fin whale. There stated quota was 1000. The Sea Shepherd Conservation society had dogged the whaling fleet during its incursion into the Antarctic Ocean seeking to kill whales for ‘research’. There is no commercial whaling allowed in the sanctuary, but the Japanese maintain they are conducting research and even paint “Research” on the sides of their vessels. The Australian government along with many others doesn’t buy that story and has banned the harpooners from their territorial waters. The whale wars continued until the last with the two harpoon vessels turning on the Bob Barker and steaming toward it trying to blind the bridge. The Sea Shepherd vessel retaliated with laser lights and distress flares. Since the beginnin...

By B. McPherson The following video is horrific. This action is taking place in a whale sanctuary. These intelligent peaceful beings are being killed in a slow, brutal way. Anyone who eats the flesh of these creatures takes on the pain and sorrow of the whale. Sunday morning the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Forest Rescue , a non-violent direct action conservation group teamed up to create what is developing into an international incident. According to the Sea Shepherd’s news page , three Forest Rescue men with the help of the anti-whaling activists, boarded the Japanese whaling security ship, the Shonan Maru #2. They are now being held on board. The activists maintain that the boarding of the vessel took place within Australia’s territorial waters and must return the Australian nationals to their country. This tactic was used to divert the Shonan Maru from tailing the Sea Shepherd’s vessel the Steve Irwin. The whalers’ stance is that the action took place in int...