Sea Shepherd Activists Make January a “No Kill” Month

The month of Jan­u­ary, usu­al­ly the prime whale catch­ing month for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Ocean, has come and gone with­out the death of a sin­gle whale, says Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety Aus­tralia Direc­tor Jeff Hansen.

It is the inter­na­tion­al organization’s ninth Antarc­tic Whale Defense Cam­paign, Oper­a­tion Zero Tol­er­ance. This season’s cam­paign is under the direc­tion of Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia, now that found­ing pres­i­dent Paul Wat­son has hand­ed author­i­ty to Hansen and for­mer Aus­tralian Greens leader and sen­a­tor Bob Brown.

Author­i­ty was trans­ferred in Decem­ber in com­pli­ance with a U.S. court restrain­ing order and after Watson’s escape last sum­mer from Ger­many, where he was detained on bail for pos­si­ble extra­di­tion to Cos­ta Rica.

The Sea Shep­herd fleet of four ships, one heli­copter, drones, and more than 120 vol­un­teer crew from around the world has to date suc­ceed­ed in keep­ing the four-ves­sel Japan­ese fleet of “research” whalers sep­a­rat­ed on the run, mak­ing it impos­si­ble for them to catch whales, Hansen says.

As an observ­er, Wat­son remains aboard the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel SSS Steve Irwin, named in hon­or of the late Aus­tralian nat­u­ral­ist and broad­cast­er.

Wat­son says he will “doc­u­ment the cam­paign” against Japan­ese whal­ing in Antarc­tic waters. The Steve Irwin is cap­tained this sea­son by for­mer first offi­cer Sid­dharth Chakravar­ty of India.

Now two inter­linked bat­tles are under­way – in the courts and at sea, where ships from both sides are maneu­ver­ing to block each oth­er.

On Jan­u­ary 31, the Japan­ese whal­ing secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru No. 2 entered the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone around Mac­quar­ie Island, chas­ing the Sea Shep­herd ship, the SSS Bob Bark­er.

The Bob Bark­er head­ed for World Her­itage list­ed Mac­quar­ie Island to lose the Shonan Maru No. 2 and escaped the Japan­ese ves­sel on Fri­day.

Cap­tain of the Bob Bark­er Peter Ham­marst­edt said, “The Shonan Maru No. 2 is an inte­gral part of the Japan­ese whal­ing pro­gram. On board are armed storm troop­ers from the Japan Coast Guard whose sole mis­sion is to vio­lent­ly pre­vent my crew of whale defend­ers, many of whom are Aus­tralian cit­i­zens, from uphold­ing Aus­tralian domes­tic law and inter­na­tion­al law pro­tect­ing whales.”

The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment offi­cial­ly noti­fied the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment to order the Shonan Maru No. 2 to remain out­side of Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters, includ­ing the waters around Mac­quar­ie Island.

Since 2008, the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been in con­tempt of an Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court order that pro­hibits them from killing whales in Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. Despite the rul­ing, Japan’s Insti­tute for Cetacean Research announced that it intends to kill near­ly 1,000 minke and 50 endan­gered fin whales dur­ing its 2012/2013 whale-hunt­ing sea­son in the South­ern Ocean.

Only the Yushin Maru No. 2 remains with the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru and both ves­sels are far north of the whal­ing area and run­ning from con­ser­va­tion­ist ves­sels.

Co-Cam­paign Leader Bob Brown said, “The first 24 hours of con­tact with the whale poach­ers have been a vic­to­ry for Sea Shep­herd and a com­plete loss for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet. I am delight­ed to report that not a sin­gle whale has been harmed so far.”

The speedy Sea Shep­herd ship Brigitte Bar­dot has chased the Japan­ese whaler Yushin Maru No. 3 some 300 miles to the south.

Today, a lawyer for the whalers is threat­en­ing the Sea Shep­herd with con­tempt of court action, claim­ing the Brigitte Bar­dot breached the order grant­ed by a U.S. appeals court that restrains Sea Shep­herd ves­sels from approach­ing with­in 500 yards of Japan­ese whalers.

The Decem­ber 17, 2012 injunc­tion issued in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton by U.S. Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals states, “Defen­dants Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and Paul Wat­son, and any par­ty act­ing in con­cert with them, are enjoined from phys­i­cal­ly attack­ing any ves­sel engaged by Plain­tiffs the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, Kyo­do Sen­paku Kaisha, Ltd., Tomoyu­ki Ogawa or Toshiyu­ki Miu­ra in the South­ern Ocean or any per­son on any such ves­sel, or from nav­i­gat­ing in a man­ner that is like­ly to endan­ger the safe nav­i­ga­tion of any such ves­sel.”

Kyo­do Sen­paku Kaisha oper­ates the whal­ing fleet for the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, a gov­ern­ment agency, while Ogawa and Miu­ra are believed to be senior offi­cers.

The injunc­tion responds to an appeal by the Insti­tute for Cetacean Research against the deci­sion of a U.S. Dis­trict Court judge, who refused to grant an injunc­tion.

The injunc­tion will remain in place until the court decides on the mer­its of the Japan­ese case oppos­ing Sea Shep­herd in Wash­ing­ton State, where the U.S. chap­ter of the group is based.

The whalers’ lawyer claims that, in vio­la­tion of the injunc­tion, the SSS Brigitte Bar­dot came with­in 20.25 yards of the Yushin Maru No. 3 on Jan­u­ary 29.

Today “The Age” reports that the group’s Mel­bourne lawyer takes the posi­tion that Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia is respon­si­ble for the group’s Antarc­tic cam­paign and the Aus­tralian chap­ter is not sub­ject to the restrain­ing order of the U.S. court.

The U.S. Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has no shares in, nor con­trol over, the Aus­tralian chap­ter, which is now run by Aus­tralians – Hansen and Bob Brown, the for­mer sen­a­tor and leader of the Aus­tralian Greens.

Wat­son was arrest­ed in Ger­many last May on a 10-year-old Cos­ta Rican war­rant, issued after a Sea Shep­herd ves­sel he com­mand­ed inter­cept­ed a Cos­ta Rican shark-finning ves­sel and was escort­ing it to a Cos­ta Rican port. The Guatemalan gov­ern­ment sent a gun­boat to force release of the shark fish­ing ves­sel, while Cos­ta Rica charged Wat­son with attempt­ed mur­der. Cos­ta Rica has since banned shark finning.

Wat­son jumped bail and left Ger­many on July 22, 2012, say­ing that the Cos­ta Rican war­rant was a maneu­ver intend­ed to deliv­er him to Japan.

At the request of Cos­ta Rica, Inter­pol has issued a Red Notice ask­ing for infor­ma­tion about the where­abouts of the 62-year-old who holds dual cit­i­zen­ship in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da.

Brown has been a con­ser­va­tion­ist for decades, both before and dur­ing the time he rep­re­sent­ed the state of Tas­ma­nia in Par­lia­ment.

“I am hon­ored to serve the great whales of the South­ern Ocean and Sea Shep­herd in this way,” Brown said. “My admi­ra­tion for Paul Wat­son is inverse­ly pro­por­tion­al to the Japan­ese government’s anger at Sea Shepherd’s suc­cess at pre­vent­ing the slaugh­ter of almost 4,000 whales in recent years.”

The Dis­cov­ery Channel’s Ani­mal Planet’s Emmy-nom­i­nat­ed show “Whale Wars” has doc­u­ment­ed the Sea Shepherd’s whale defense cam­paigns for the past five years and is also onboard this sea­son.