Category: Global

22nd January 2012

The Japanese whaling fleet are not where they should be this time of year.

Last year the fleet was operating in the Ross Sea. This year their “scientific survey” was supposed to take place in the waters south and west of Tasmania, east and south of South Africa.

Every year they alternate. But not this year! Although the whalers attempted to begin their killing operations in the waters southwest of Australia, the Sea Shepherd ships have chased the entire whaling fleet ever eastward. At 1700 hours AEST, the Bob Barker encountered the Yushin Maru No. 3 at 66 Degrees, 22 minutes South and 179 Degrees, 05 minutes West.

From being intercepted 500 miles west of Fremantle, Australia, the Japanese fleet has run over 4,500 nautical miles for the last 30 days, all the way into the Ross Sea, far to the East of Australia. This is an average of 150 miles a day, leaving very little time to kill whales with only one harpoon vessel. The other two harpoon vessels have either been tailing or searching for the Sea Shepherd ships.

“You can say we chased the whale killers into yesterday since we have crossed the International Date Line,” said Captain Paul Watson, of the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin. “This illustrates that they really have no scientific agenda at all since their so-called survey requires them to “sample” whales from the two different areas alternatively each year. This is not about science and it never has been. It’s not even about profit anymore because we have negated their profits. It’s simply about pride. Whaling in the Southern Ocean has become a heavily subsidized welfare project for an archaic industry that has no place in the twenty-first century.”

Sea Shepherd’s campaign, Operation Divine Wind, has been challenging this year due to the thirty million dollars allocated to the whaling fleet for added security. This money was taken from the tsunami and earthquake relief fund.

“They have ten million dollars for every one million dollars we have to finance our three ships,” said Captain Alex Cornelissen of the Bob Barker. “They have the full support of their government and literally have a license to kill because if any of us are injured or killed, their government will back them and justify their actions. Our governments condemn us just for tossing rotten butter on their decks.”

The chase across the bottom of the world involves five ships from the Japanese whaling fleet and two ships from Sea Shepherd. The third Sea Shepherd ship, the Brigitte Bardot, was damaged by heavy seas and had to return to Fremantle, Australia for repairs.

Never before has the Japanese whaling fleet abandoned one designated whaling “survey” area for another. Sea Shepherd has apparently seriously disrupted the Japanese whaling plan for this season and has cost them a huge amount in fuel costs. In addition, two of the three harpoon vessels have been taken away from killing whales in order to tail the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker. The Yushin Maru No. 2 is tailing the Steve Irwin and the Yushin Maru No. 3 is tailing the Bob Barker. This has left only the Yushin Maru to hunt for whales.

Sea Shepherd has been able to keep the whaling fleet on the move and continues to track their movements by relying on drone operations and ten years of experience following the predictable movements of the whalers.

Last season the Bob Barker was able to chase the Nisshin Maru all the way to the tip of South America before they quit and returned to Japan in humiliation after taking only seventeen percent of their kill quota.

January 18^th, 2012

The Japanese whalers have escalated their aggression by throwing iron grappling hooks at Sea Shepherd boats.

Two Steve Irwin crew were struck in the shoulder with iron grappling hooks and one crewmember was struck twice in the face with a long bamboo pole.

The Yushin Maru No. 2 continues to tail the Steve Irwin. The incident occurred at 0400 Hours AEST at 64 degrees 17 minutes South and 155 degrees 41 minutes East. This is about 300 miles north of Mawson Peninsula off the George V Land coast of Antarctica.

“Our small boats were attempting to slow down the Japanese harpoon vessel Yushin Maru No. 2, which is aggressively tailing the Steve Irwin,” said Captain Paul Watson.

Yushin Maru sprays Delta boat with water cannonAmerican crewmember Brian Race, (25) from New York, was jabbed twice in the face with a bamboo pole receiving lacerations above his right eye and on his nose.

Russell Bergh of South Africa, (35) a cameraman for Animal Planet, was struck in the right arm and shoulder with an iron grappling hook thrown from the harpoon vessel resulting in deep bruising.

Photographer Guillaume Collet of France, (27) was also struck in the right arm and shoulder by an iron grappling hook resulting in deep bruising.

There were no injuries incurred by any of the crew on the Japanese vessel.

Two of the three harpoon vessels have been assigned to tail Sea Shepherd ships, effectively knocking out two of the three killing boats.

“We are almost at the limit of the eastern boundary of their self assigned hunting area,” said Captain Watson. “We should be getting close.”

10.1.12

An unscheduled meeting between Japan’s whalers and environmental activists on the high seas seems an unlikely backdrop to an outbreak of détente.

But Australia was quietly celebrating a minor victory for diplomacy on Tuesday after Japan agreed to release three anti-whaling activists who illegally boarded one of its whaling ships over the weekend. 

The trio, all Australian citizens, have been detained on the Shonan Maru 2, which is providing security to the fleet, after clambering aboard early Sunday morning to protest Japan’s annual hunts in the Antarctic. The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 but allows Japan to hunt a limited number of whales for “scientific research.” The fleet left port last month with plans to kill some 900 whales this season.

The incident threatened to cause tension between Australia and Japan, close trade and security partners. Soon after the men were detained it seemed likely that they would be kept aboard the Shonan Maru 2 and taken to Japan, where they faced a trial and possible imprisonment for trespassing.

By late Monday evening, however, Japan had agreed to release the trio, a move welcomed by Australia’s prime minister, Julia Gillard.

Prime Minister Gillard, who came under immediate pressure at home to secure the activists’ release, thanked Japan for its cooperation, but sounded a warning to campaigners thinking of employing similar forms of direct action.

“No one should assume that because an agreement has been reached with the Japanese government in this instance that individuals will not be charged and convicted in the future,” she said in a statement. “The best way to stop whaling once and for all is through our court action.

Australia has lodged a legal challenge to the annual whale hunts with the international court of justice in the Hague but a decision is not expected until 2013 at the earliest.

Canberra’s delicate task was to balance an election pledge to end the whale hunts with a public show of respect for maritime law.

The release, which won’t happen until an Australian coastguard boat rendezvouses with the Shona Maru 2 in several days’ time, was welcomed by Sea Shepherd’s founder, Paul Watson.

But in an interview with Macquarie Radio, Mr. Watson said: “If the Australian government would do their job and fulfill their election promises, these things wouldn’t be happening.”

Japan, meanwhile, insisted the decision to release the men did not mean it had gone soft on Sea Shepherd.

The trio are not members of the group – they belong to another organization called Forest Rescue – and had not injured any members of the Shonan Maru 2’s crew when they boarded, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Osamu Fujimura, told reporters.

“The three activists were not violent during or after they boarded the whaling vessel,” he said. “There was no evidence that they were part of Sea Shepherd, which has been engaged in obstructing the fleet.”

Japan may have also had in mind the negative international publicity it attracted in 2010, when it prosecuted former Sea Shepherd member Pete Bethune, who had boarded the Shonan Maru 2 to protest the sinking of the group’s high-tech speedboat. Mr. Bethune, who had been carrying a knife, was given a suspended sentence and deported.

Official support for the whaling program was also put under the spotlight last month when it was revealed that the government had used 2.28 billion yen ($30 million) of taxpayer money intended for the tsunami recovery effort to fund this year’s hunt, on top an existing $6 million annual subsidy. The fisheries agency said the use of the fund was justified because one of the towns destroyed in the disaster was a whaling port.

11 January 2012

The nautical chess pieces continue to move and the board keeps changing in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The Shonan Maru #2 is no longer chasing the Steve Irwin. The security vessel has been replaced by the harpoon vessel Yushin Maru #2. It is assumed that the Shonan Maru #2 will now head west towards the Australian customs vessel Ocean Protector to turn over the three Australian prisoners onboard. With the Yushin Maru #2 now following the Steve Irwin, and the Yushin Maru #3 still at Macquarie Island, the Nisshin Maru now has only one harpoon vessel left – the Yushin Maru.

Sea Shepherd has temporarily lost drone contact with the Nisshin Maru and cannot guarantee that whaling has not begun. If so, it will proceed with two of the three harpoon vessels not involved in killing operations. “If we had one more ship, there would be no possibility of any whales dying,” said Captain Paul Watson. “In July I met with Greenpeace representatives at the IWC and requested of them that they send one ship to support us. I told them that one more ship would shut down this entire fleet. They refused, and that is deeply disappointing, and as a result whales may die.”

Sea Shepherd is working to secure a third large, fast, ice-strengthened vessel to return next season. The Sea Shepherd fast scout vessel Brigitte Bardot remains in Fremantle undergoing repairs from damage caused by the extreme weather conditions of the Southern Ocean.

“We have demonstrated that we can shut these poachers down and every year we become more effective than the year before. One more ship will give us the ability to throw a blanket of intervention over them that will completely extinguish their illegal operations,” said Captain Paul Watson.

The dropping away of the Shonan Maru #2 removes the possibility of the transfer of the three Forest Rescue men to the Steve Irwin. The transfer of the men to the Steve Irwin would have saved the Australian government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile despite being ordered out of the territorial waters of Australia’s MacQuarie Island, the Yushin Maru #3 continues to illegally remain inside the twelve mile territorial limit.

“The Japanese whalers act like they own the entire Southern Ocean,” said Bob Barker Captain Alex Cornelissen of the Netherlands. “They go where they want, when they want, and do what they want, with complete contempt for Australian sovereignty.”

24.12.11

Japanese Security Ships Move In On the Steve Irwin

The Sea Shepherd crew has intercepted the Japanese whaling fleet on Christmas Day, a thousand miles north of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The Sea Shepherd ship, Steve Irwin, deployed a drone to successfully locate and photograph the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru on December 24th. Once the pursuit began, three Japanese harpoon/security ships moved in on the Steve Irwin to shield the Nisshin Maru to allow it to escape.

This time however the Japanese tactic of tailing the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker will not work because the drones, one on the Steve Irwin and the other on the Bob Barker, can track and follow the Nisshin Maru and can relay the positions back to the Sea Shepherd ships.

“We can cover hundreds of miles with these drones and they have proven to be valuable assets for this campaign,” said Captain Paul Watson on board the Steve Irwin.

The drone named Nicole Montecalvo was donated to the Steve Irwin by Bayshore Recycling of New Jersey.

Captain Watson having received reports from fishermen when the Japanese ship passed through the Lombok Strait waited south of the strait at a distance of 500 miles off the southwest coast of Western Australia. Sea Shepherd caught the whalers at 37 degrees South, far above the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary

“The chase is on for the next 1000 miles,” said Deckhand Eleanor Lister of Jersey (U.K.).

With the Steve Irwin taking up the resources of three of the Japanese ships the Bob Barker remains clear of a tail and the Brigitte Bardot is clear to scout out the factory ship, having superior speed to the harpoon vessels.

The Sea Shepherd crew have found the Japanese whaling fleet before a single whale has been killed.

“This is going to be a long hard pursuit from here to the coast of Antarctica,” said Captain Watson. “But thanks to these drones, we now have an advantage we have never had before – eyes in the sky.”

Background on the Steve Irwin Drone:
Bayshore Recycling striving to protect and conserve nature

Drone Nicole Montecalvo aids Sea Shepherd in preserving ocean wildlife worldwide.

Woodbridge NJ‐ Bayshore Recycling Corp (BRC) not only strives to protect the planet’s natural resources through recycling but also encourages everyone to help endangered wildlife. To promote and encourage this effort, BRC’s owners recently donated a long‐range drone fitted with cameras and detection equipment to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS). The SSCS is an international non‐profit, direct action marine wildlife conservation organization. SSCS necessitated an additional aerial vehicle that could add to their fleet and expand their capabilities in order to scan hundreds of miles more with each flight in order to assist in finding and documenting whaling ships and other illegal poaching operations. The drone will also assist in helping protect the fleet, her crew and alert them to potential dangers, when their helicopter may not be available for use.

A long‐range drone is defined as an unmanned aerial vehicle that does not require human operation and can fly independently or be operated remotely. The drone named Nicole Montecalvo has assisted in locating Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean previously has assisted in operations against blue fin tuna poaching operations off the coast of Libya. The drone Nicole Montecalvo was delivered on board the vessel Steve Irwin by the Vessel Security Officer during transit to Antarctica while in search of the Japanese flagship, Nisshin Maru. BRC stresses the importance of conserving our planet’s natural habitats. Whether it is saving natural resources, conserving energy, preserving endangered wildlife or recycling household debris—Bayshore rises to the challenge. Together, BRC and the SSCS will fight to save the ocean and its vulnerable inhabitants.