Category: Wilderness Defence

Sea Shep­herd Crew Remain On Guard Behind the Nis­shin Maru

Sea Shep­herd Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 7th, 2009
0700 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1200 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 57 Min­utes South and 164 Degrees 53 Min­utes West
Despite repeat­ed assaults by frus­trat­ed and increas­ing­ly vio­lent Japan­ese whalers, the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin con­tin­ues to stand guard behind the Japan­ese float­ing abat­toir called the Nis­shin Maru. The three Japan­ese har­poon boats are not in the area but the Sea Shep­herd crew is pre­pared to obstruct them should they return.

The Japan­ese have been accus­ing Sea Shep­herd of try­ing to obstruct their props with ropes yet the whalers have been try­ing to do the same thing to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin. They are accus­ing the Sea Shep­herd crew of throw­ing rot­ten but­ter (which the Japan­ese refer to as “acid”) at them yet the whalers are throw­ing golf balls and chunks of met­al at the Steve Irwin crew. In addi­tion, the Japan­ese are blast­ing the Sea Shep­herd crew with water can­nons and Long Range Acousti­cal weapons — a son­ic gun that caus­es dis­ori­en­ta­tion, nau­sea and deaf­ness.

“I find it inter­est­ing that so called experts and politi­cians are quick to con­demn Sea Shep­herd’s tac­tics for uphold­ing con­ser­va­tion law yet say not a word about the esca­lat­ing phys­i­cal vio­lence direct­ed at us by the whalers who are break­ing the law,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Their posi­tion of sid­ing with the poach­ers seems to be that if we did not put our­selves in this sit­u­a­tion we would not be expe­ri­enc­ing such vio­lence. The same could be said for any police­man and Sea Shep­herd is not down here to protest whal­ing, we are down here to obstruct ille­gal whal­ing as defined under inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. We are down here to enforce the law, not to break it.”

There is a legal prece­dent for Sea Shep­herd’s inter­ven­tion and that is the Unit­ed Nation World Char­ter for Nature that allows for non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions to uphold inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and in Sec­tion 21(e) specif­i­cal­ly in areas beyond nation­al juris­dic­tions.

The Japan­ese whale poach­ers have the advan­tage of supe­ri­or ships, faster, more pow­er­ful ships, they have weapons and they have the sup­port of their gov­ern­ment that will defend what­ev­er actions they take includ­ing the killing of our crew if that should occur.
On Feb­ru­ary 6th, two inci­dents occurred where the Steve Irwin col­lid­ed with har­poon ves­sels as they forced their way past the Steve Irwin’s block­ade in their pur­suit of their poach­ing activ­i­ties. These col­li­sions were not inten­tion­al on the part of Sea Shep­herd.

“Ear­li­er we filmed a whale being ille­gal­ly killed and we watched as that whale endured an ago­niz­ing death, thrash­ing about in its own blood for twen­ty-five min­utes,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “We view the killing of that whale as cold blood­ed mur­der and we are com­mit­ted to doing every­thing we can, short of inflict­ing injuries our­selves, to pro­tect these defence­less, gen­tle, intel­li­gent and social­ly com­plex sen­tient beings.”

The har­poon boats have not returned to the Nis­shin Maru since the last inci­dent occurred at 1800 Hours on Feb­ru­ary 6th.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has made it clear to the gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia that our inter­ven­tions which are becom­ing increas­ing­ly more dan­ger­ous because of Japan­ese aggres­sion can be avoid­ed by Peter Gar­rett and Kevin Rudd sim­ply mak­ing good on their pre-elec­tion promise to take the Japan­ese whalers to court.

“Because Gar­rett and Rudd have reneged on their promis­es to us, the peo­ple of Aus­tralia, we have been forced to defend these whales as Aus­tralian cit­i­zens in these hos­tile and remote waters sim­ply because some­one has to,” said Andrew Per­ry of Hobart, Tas­ma­nia.

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Steve Irwin Suf­fers Sec­ond Col­li­sion with the Japan­ese Fleet

Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 6th, 2009, 1830 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
2330 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 52 Min­utes South and 165 Degrees 18 Min­utes West

At 1800 Hours the har­poon ves­sels Yushin Maru No. 1 and the Yushin Maru No.3 decid­ed to run the Sea Shep­herd block­ade to trans­fer two dead whales to the flens­ing deck of the Nis­shin Maru. The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin was block­ing the slip­way to pre­vent the trans­fer in order to shut down the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tions.

As the Nis­shin Maru attempt­ed to hook onto the dead whale, the Steve Irwin and the Yushin Maru No.3 col­lid­ed with the for­ward star­board side of the Steve Irwin and the port stern side of the har­poon ves­sel com­ing togeth­er.

“We told them to not con­tin­ue their ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions and that we would be block­ing the stern slip­way of the fac­to­ry ship,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “They decid­ed to test our resolve and appar­ent­ly expect­ed us to retreat when they charged in ahead of us to make the trans­fer.”

Cap­tain Wat­son said that the Steve Irwin became dif­fi­cult to con­trol under a bar­rage of met­al objects, blasts from the water can­nons, and the dis­ori­en­ta­tion caused by the LRAD acoustic weapons that the whalers were using on the con­ser­va­tion­ists.

“I was dazed by the son­ic blasts being used on us at close range.” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I have to admit it was dif­fi­cult to con­cen­trate with that devise being focused on us.”

“I’ve nev­er felt any­thing quite like it,” said Emi­ly Hunter from Toron­to, Cana­da. “It pen­e­trates the body and you can feel your mus­cles vibrat­ing. It made me dizzy and left me some­what dazed.”

The Steve Irwin suf­fered no notice­able dam­age from the col­li­sion and no one was seri­ous­ly injured. A few of the Sea Shep­herd crew were struck by golf balls and pieces of met­al. The crew of the Steve Irwin were unable to deter­mine if there was any dam­age done to the har­poon hunter killer boat.

The two whales were trans­ferred after the Steve Irwin shut down the oper­a­tions of the fleet for twelve hours.

“We are try­ing to make this as dif­fi­cult as pos­si­ble for them to con­tin­ue their ille­gal activ­i­ties, “said Mol­ly Kendall from Ade­laide, South Aus­tralia. “It is dif­fi­cult to see them mur­der­ing these whales and we are deter­mined to do every­thing we pos­si­bly can to stop this hor­rif­ic slaugh­ter.”

The Steve Irwin remains on the tail of the Nis­shin Maru to attempt to obstruct any fur­ther trans­fers in an effort to stop the unlaw­ful poach­ing of the whales by the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

“I wish we did not have to be down here in this dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I’ve said repeat­ed­ly that if Aus­tralia or New Zealand would agree to take Japan to the inter­na­tion­al court on this than we would back off. Because inter­na­tion­al law is not being enforced, we have no choice but to do what we can with the resources avail­able to us to defend these endan­gered whales in this estab­lished inter­na­tion­al whale sanc­tu­ary.”

—–

Update from the Ross Sea
Sea Shep­herd’s Oper­a­tion Musashi

Feb­ru­ary 6th, 2009
0800 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1300 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 44 Min­utes South and 165 Degrees 39 Min­utes West
The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin col­lid­ed with the Yushin Maru #2 this morn­ing as the har­poon ves­sel moved in to block the Steve Irwin’s attempt to pre­vent the trans­fer of a dead whale up the slip­way of the Nis­shin Maru.

“We were in the process of block­ing the trans­fer from the Yushin Maru #2 when the Yushin Maru #1 moved direct­ly in front of the bow to block us,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I could not turn to star­board with­out hit­ting the Yushin Maru #1. I tried to back down but the move­ment of the Yushin Maru #2 made the col­li­sion unavoid­able.”

The Yushin Maru #2 was trans­fer­ring a 2nd whale killed this morn­ing.

“The whalers have decid­ed to test our resolve,” said 1st Offi­cer Peter Ham­marst­edt. “They have esca­lat­ed this bat­tle to see just how deter­mined we are to pro­tect these whales. We’re shep­herds and we will do what we can to pro­tect our flock from these mur­der­ous poach­ers.”

The Yushin Maru #3 has also killed a whale but is unable to approach the fac­to­ry ship because the Steve Irwin is now guard­ing the slip­way.

The Sea Shep­herd crew intend to hold this posi­tion to pre­vent the trans­fer.

Feb­ru­ary 1, 2009
The Japan­ese whal­ing ships have been jam­ming Sea Shep­herd com­mu­ni­ca­tions and have been deploy­ing a long range acoustic weapon device to repel Sea Shep­herd boats. The sound waves cause dis­ori­en­ta­tion and nau­sea.

The Japan­ese whal­ing ships have been jam­ming Sea Shep­herd com­mu­ni­ca­tions and have been deploy­ing a long range acoustic weapon device to repel Sea Shep­herd boats. The sound waves cause dis­ori­en­ta­tion and nau­sea.

The deploy­ment of mil­i­tary weapon sys­tems in the Antarc­tic Treaty Zone is a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. The whalers are becom­ing increas­ing­ly vio­lent in defense of their ille­gal activ­i­ties.

“It is a very dra­mat­ic scene out here as ships zig zag back and forth in thick ice and heavy swells,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “The whalers are deploy­ing water can­nons, con­cus­sion grenades, acoustic weapons, and throw­ing sol­id brass and lead balls at Sea Shep­herd crewmem­bers. If we were to do any of the things these thugs are doing, we would be denounced as eco-ter­ror­ists. There cer­tain­ly is a dou­ble stan­dard where whale killers can use vio­lence with­out fear of con­dem­na­tion from their gov­ern­ment and we can’t even defend our­selves with­out con­dem­na­tion from our gov­ern­ments. What is impor­tant how­ev­er is that despite the vio­lence from the whalers, no whales are being killed. They can’t get away from us and if we keep on their tail they can’t kill whales.”

——–

A crewmem­ber from the Steve Irwin was slight­ly injured after being struck by a high pres­sure water can­non fired from the Japan­ese whal­ing fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru. One of the cam­era­men on one of the Steve Irwin’s inflat­able boats was cut and bruised above the eye when a high pres­sure blast of water knocked him off his feet while he was film­ing.

A sec­ond crew mem­ber was also injured in the con­fronta­tion with the whalers. Lau­rens De Groot of the Nether­lands was slight­ly injured when struck in the face by a met­al ball thrown by whalers. Whalers onboard the Yushin Maru #3 threw sol­id brass and lead balls at crewmem­bers on one of the Steve Irwin’s inflat­able boats.

The Sea Shep­herd crew also dis­cov­ered that the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet is deploy­ing a new weapon in defence of their ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties.

The fac­to­ry ship the Nis­shin Maru and the two har­poon ves­sels in the fleet are equipped with Long Range Acousti­cal Devices (LRAD). This is a mil­i­tary grade weapon sys­tem that sends out mid to high fre­quen­cy sound waves designed to dis­ori­ent and pos­si­bly inca­pac­i­tate per­son­nel. It is basi­cal­ly an anti-per­son­nel weapons sys­tem.

The Steve Irwin has been chas­ing the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet for twen­ty-four hours at high speed through scat­tered ice fields and chang­ing weath­er con­di­tions for over three hun­dred miles west­ward across the top of the Ross Sea.

At 0500 Hours (Syd­ney Time) the Steve Irwin deployed two fast inflat­able boats and a heli­copter to harass the fleet and to hur­ry them along. Sea Shep­herd’s strat­e­gy is to keep the whal­ing fleet on the move. If they are run­ning they are not killing whales and no whales have been killed dur­ing the last 24 hours. In fact the Steve Irwin crew were excit­ed to see Fin whales swim­ming along­side the ship as they pur­sued the whal­ing fleet.

The Japan­ese har­poon ves­sels have been maneu­ver­ing very close to the Steve Irwin to intim­i­date and to try and lead the Sea Shep­herd ship away from the Nis­shin Maru. The con­fronta­tion that began in clear weath­er in dense ice and heavy swells became increas­ing treach­er­ous as fog and bliz­zard con­di­tions moved in around 0900 Hours.

The Steve Irwin crew retreat­ed when with­in range of the acoustic weapons.

“All we need to do is to keep them run­ning and to keep them from whal­ing and that is exact­ly what we are doing. It is prov­ing to be a very suc­cess­ful day,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

Weath­er con­di­tions are becom­ing increas­ing worse with heavy snow, fog, increas­ing swells and denser ice con­di­tions.

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