"The whale war in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is over. The whales have won!" announced Captain Paul Watson from the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin on Saturday.
The Nisshin Maru whaling factory ship late last week made a pivotal course change north, as the Japanese Fisheries Agency announced that the whaling fleet had been recalled for this season.
“The Nisshin Maru made a significant course change immediately after the Japanese government made it official that the whaling fleet has been recalled,” said Captain Alex Cornelissen from Sea Shepherd's Bob Barker. “She looks like she’s going home!” The Bob Barker has been tailing the Nisshin Maru since February 9, making it impossible for the whalers to engage in their illegal slaughter in the southern ocean whale sanctuary.
The Japanese whaling fleet, engaged in commercial whaling inder the guise of scientific research, has had an extremely poor season being constantly harrassed and prevented from whaling in all but a few days.
The whaling fleet left Japan in early December, much later than usual. Perhaps a portent for the last commercial whaling season in the southern ocean. For the first time in seven years Sea Shepherd were been able to locate 2 harpoon vessels in the whaling fleet on New Year's Eve before whaling had begun.
The chase of the Nisshin Maru had begun. While the Nisshin Maru fled from the three Sea Shepherd vessels, no whaling could occurr. Sea Shepherd used it's fast intercept vessel, the Gojira, it's helicopter, and weather balloons to help locate the whaling factory ship.
Along the way, Sea Shepherd found the whaling fleet resupply vessel, the Sun Laurel and requested it's removal from the Antarctic Treaty Zone. The Captain complied and Sea Shepherd escorted the Sun Laurel out of the Antarctic Treaty Zone. The whaling fleet has breached the Antarctic Treaty on numerous occasions by refueling in the Antarctic treaty zone.
"Today we celebrate with you a victory for the oceans! Sea Shepherd has turned the tide and provoked a debate in Japan about whaling." said Paul Watson on a blog post.
Greenpeace also celebrated the recall of the whaling fleet, “This historic announcement confirms what we all know: that Japan’s whaling serves no purpose whatsoever and the fleet has no business in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary,” said Junichi Sato, Executive Director of Greenpeace Japan. “All the whaling programme has produced is a stockpile of thousands of tonnes of frozen whale meat, the waste of billions of Japanese taxpayer’s yen, and a culture of corruption and scandal. An early return of the whaling fleet is not enough – Japan’s whaling ships should never leave port again.”
Greenpeace is demanding that Japan’s government finally end its commercial whaling programme and re-open an investigation into corruption scandals inside the industry. The Fisheries Agency of Japan recently admitted that five of its officials who had sailed with the whaling fleet to oversee its activities, had accepted expensive gifts of whale meat from the fleet’s operators.
“The Japanese public doesn’t want to be force-fed whale meat or be forced to bankroll a corrupt and dying industry,” added Sato. “Greenpeace is urging the Japanese government to not only investigate the whale meat scandal we exposed three years ago, but also start taking real action towards protection of the world’s oceans”.
Tensions between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd and their different approaches to nonviolent direct action and resourcing the campaign to stop commercial whaling have perhaps hindered the campaign at various times. Not least in the lack of co-operation in locating the whaling fleet in past seasons. Now it seems at last all anti-whaling activists can celebrate the end of commercial whaling in the southern ocean for this season and perhaps a final end.
Paul Watson summed up his earnest hope in a post on Saturday February 19, 2011:
"The Japanese government is posturing and talking big in an effort to save face. The reality is that the Japanese whaling industry is an antiquated, dying industry that has no place in the country of Japan in the 21st Century."
"In 1977, Sea Shepherd fought the Australian whalers at Cheynes Beach in Western Australia. It was a bitter and angry confrontation. In 1978, Australia ended whaling, and is now the leading nation on this planet in its defense of the great whales.
“This is my great hope for Japan,” said Captain Watson. “Like Australia, a whaling nation evolving to a state of compassion for the great whales, and I know that when the Japanese embrace a cause, they embrace it with a steadfast and determined loyalty. I predict that Japan will be one of the leading conservationist nations on the planet in the coming years, and the cessation of whaling in the Antarctic Ocean will be the place where it will have begun.”
"The whale war in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is over. The whales have won!"
Photo copyright Sea Shepherd
Comments
Australian government's attitude is "go to hell"
Funny thing, the Japanese claimed that they had to pull out because of safety concerns for their crew, sighting that SSCS was an eco-terrorist group endangering lives. Even our Prime Minister gave the SSCS a back-hander warning them that "if they got into trouble not to expect by some miracle that someone will turn up to save them, because that is not how the world works", nice one Julia Gillard.
Well guess what these most dangerous, life threatening, Interpol wanted, group of eco-terrorist, pirates are doing now. They are in a search and rescue mission to save the lives of the crew of the Norwegian's of the yacht the Berserk.
Go Figure that one out.
So the moral of the story do not call on Australian Government who is responsible for the area. Their attitude is "go to hell". Once again the SSCS is doing what Australia Government should be doing but not. Saving lives of whales and people. Thank you Sea Shepherd you really are making a difference in the world.
Japan's barbaric butchery wall of shame (kills):
Japan always tries to rationalize its appetite for endanged animals. There simply is no excuse. Just as we don't want China to continue to desimate the Rhinoceros population merely to supply a placebo aphrodesiac (in the form of powdered rhino horn), we don't need Japan and Iceland to drive the extinction of whales to meet the needs of Tokyo Sushi bars.
The world seems to look the other way on Japan's whale transgressions
Japans barbaric butchery wall of shame (kills):
Rissos Dolphin: 550 per year
False Killer Whale: 100 per year
Common Bottlenose Dolphin: 1000 per year
Pantropical Spotted Dolphins: 900 per year
Striped Dolphin: 700 per year
Pacific Whiteside Dolphin: 260 per year
Short finned pilot whale: 400 per year
Bairds Beaked whale: 60 per year
Common Minke whale: 150 per year
Dalls Porpoise: 16000 per year
Sei Whale (ENDANGERED): 100 per year
Sperm Whale (ENDANGERED): 10 per year
Brydes Whale (ENDANGERED): 50 per year
Antartic Minke whale: 900 per year
Fin Whale (ENDANGERED): kill quota of 50 per year
Humpback whale (ENDANGERED): kill quota 50 per year
No doubt the killing methods for this massive number of marine mammals is horrific - speared, shot, harpooned & sliced up alive.
Japanese whalers a danger to themselves
The irony in this whole thing is that fact the Japanese whalers are more of a danger to themselves than the SSCS is to them.
Was it not last season a whaler went overboard and was never found? Season before that there was a gravly ill whaler that had to be flown to NZ for medical treatment? and lets not forget that fire that broke out on the Nisshin a few years back which killed at least one person, maybe 2?
So if anything, the Japanese are saving their own lives by going back to Japan along with the whales of course. The same whales butchered under the bogus JARPAII research program.
A great way to fall on ones sword Japan – another great embaressment and blow to the once almighty empire.