update from Sea Shepherd in Antartica fighting the whalers — arrest attempt & another ramming

Ady Gil Cap­tain Attempts to Serve Arrest War­rant to Cap­tain of the Shonan Maru No. 2

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 15, 2010, the crew of Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s ves­sel Bob Bark­er sur­prised, chased, and engaged the Shonan Maru No. 2, a secu­ri­ty ship from the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing fleet. The engage­ment took place between the hours of 8:30 pm and 12:30 am (AEST).

The Shonan Maru No. 2 recent­ly achieved infamy when it vio­lent­ly attacked the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil, threat­en­ing the lives of its crew and sink­ing the ves­sel due to sus­tained dam­age. Today though, the Shonan Maru No. 2 was on the run from the Bob Bark­er, the irony being that Sea Shep­herd adheres to a strict pol­i­cy of non-vio­lence and has an unblem­ished 30+ year record of nev­er caus­ing or sus­tain­ing any seri­ous injuries while at sea.

Under New Zealand law, a cit­i­zen is empow­ered to serve an arrest war­rant on a sus­pect for a crime that car­ries a penal­ty in excess of eight years impris­on­ment. The charge of attempt­ed mur­der qual­i­fies and thus Cap­tain Pete Bethune act­ed in accor­dance with New Zealand law in his attempt to serve the cap­tain of the Shonan Maru No. 2 who delib­er­ate­ly sank his ship and almost killed his crew and him­self.

After a sur­prise launch, one of Sea Shepherd’s small boats snuck up on the Shonan Maru No. 2 and over a peri­od of more than four hours the Bob Bark­er slow­ly closed the gap and harassed the ves­sel, order­ing it to stop and sub­mit to arrest for the crime of attempt­ed mur­der on the crew of the Ady Gil. Each eva­sive maneu­ver from the Shonan Maru No. 2 cost the whalers crit­i­cal speed.

Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, Pres­i­dent and Founder of Sea Shep­herd, “Cap­tain Pete Bethune had lit­tle choice but to attempt to serve the arrest war­rant him­self. Down here at the edge of nowhere, with­out back up from his gov­ern­ment, he found he was the only sher­iff in town. A cap­tain of a ship that has been sunk by anoth­er cap­tain has the author­i­ty to bring his attack­er to jus­tice. Cap­tain Bethune has been attempt­ing to do just that.”

Attempts by this ille­gal whal­ing ves­sel to dis­cour­age the small boats launched by the Bob Bark­er includ­ed the use of Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs), sev­er­al very high-pres­sure water can­nons, and eva­sive maneu­vers. Some of the crew aboard the Shonan Maru No. 2 were also wear­ing cylin­ders on their backs attached to (as yet uniden­ti­fied) hand-held devices resem­bling weapons.

Once it became appar­ent that the Shonan Maru No. 2 would not sub­mit to the arrest, the Bob Bark­er turned around to con­tin­ue the hunt for the fac­to­ry ship of the ille­gal Japan­ese fleet. This will prove dif­fi­cult with the Shonan Maru No. 2 con­tin­u­ing to fol­low and mon­i­tor the Bob Bark­er, but Sea Shepherd’s flag ship Steve Irwin is also on the prowl for the ille­gal whal­ing fleet, and hopes are high that the float­ing house of blood known as the Nis­shin Maru will soon be located—and shut down.

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Feb­ru­ary 6 2010
Bob Bark­er Rammed by Ille­gal Whaler

Nis­han Maru rams Bob Bark­er­At 1209 PM Fre­man­tle, Aus­tralia time, the Yushin Maru 3 inten­tion­al­ly rammed the Sea Shep­herd ship Bob Bark­er, pen­e­trat­ing it’s hull and endan­ger­ing the lives of it¹s crew. The col­li­sion occurred at 65 degrees 21 South, 67 degrees 58 East, about 180 miles off Cape Darn­ley in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.

The Bob Bark­er had been active­ly block­ing the slip­way of the Nis­shin Maru, the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet’s fac­to­ry ship when the col­li­sion occurred. Four har­poon ships, the Yushin Maru 1, 2, and 3 and Shonan Maru 2, were cir­cling and mak­ing near pass­es to the stern and bow of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel. The Bob Bark­er did not move from its posi­tion. At which point, the Yushin Maru 3 inten­tion­al­ly rammed the Bob Bark­er, cre­at­ing a 3‑foot long 4‑inch deep gash in the mid star­board side of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel above the water­line.

No crew was injured dur­ing the col­li­sion. The Bob Bark­er con­tin­ues to block the slip­way of the Nis­shin Maru, pre­vent­ing the trans­fer of slaugh­tered whales and effec­tive­ly shut­ting down ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions.

The inci­dent demon­strates a con­tin­ued esca­la­tion of vio­lence by the ille­gal whalers in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son from the bridge of the Steve Irwin, cur­rent­ly en route to join the action, “Because the whalers got away basi­cal­ly scot-free with the out­ra­geous sink­ing of the Ady Gil, they now appar­ent­ly think they can do what­ev­er they want and they appear to have no qualms about endan­ger­ing Sea Shep­herd crew. What we real­ly need is for the gov­ern­ments of Aus­tralia and New Zealand to step up and start enforc­ing mar­itime laws in these waters, or who know what the whalers will do next. Aus­tralian and New Zealand lives are at risk every day in these waters.”

The crew of the Bob Bark­er noticed that the Yushin Maru 3 stopped mov­ing in the water short­ly after the impact, and appeared to be falling behind as the Bob Bark­er main­tained its posi­tion on the stern of the Nis­shin Maru. It’s pos­si­ble the Yushin Maru 3 dam­aged itself in the col­li­sion.

The Japan­ese whalers are far more aggres­sive this year than in past cam­paigns.