Japanese Open Fire on Sea Shepherd Crew: Three Injured

07/03/2008
At 1545 hours (0445 GMT), a clash between the crew of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Steve Irwin and the Japan­ese whal­ing ship Nis­shin Maru turned vio­lent when the Japan­ese Coast Guard began to throw flash grenades at the crew of the Steve Irwin.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son was struck by a bul­let in the chest. For­tu­nate­ly, the bul­let was stopped by his Kevlar vest. The bul­let struck just above the heart and man­gled Cap­tain Watson’s anti-poach­ing badge, which was worn on his sweater under­neath the Kevlar vest.

Dr. David Page was video­taped pry­ing the bul­let from Cap­tain Watson’s Kevlar vest. “You have been hit by a bul­let,” he said.

The Kevlar vest and anti-poach­ing badge effec­tive­ly saved Cap­tain Watson’s life.

Addi­tion­al injuries were sus­tained by crewmem­bers Ash­ley Dunn and Ralph Lowe. Dunn, 35, from Launce­s­ton, Aus­tralia suf­fered a hip injury when he tried to get out of the way of the explod­ing grenades. Lowe, 33, from Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia received bruis­es to his back when one of the flash grenades explod­ed behind him.

The Japan­ese Coast Guard was retal­i­at­ing against Sea Shep­herd crewmem­bers for toss­ing rot­ten but­ter onto the decks to dis­cour­age their ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties. The clash came after a week long pur­suit by the Steve Irwin of the Nis­shin Maru, in an effort to stop ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

Ear­li­er in the day at 0800 hours (1900 GMT), the Steve Irwin had ordered the Nis­shin Maru to leave French ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. The Japan­ese whaler com­plied and turned around, head­ing back west into Aus­tralian waters.

The con­fronta­tion occurred inside the Aus­tralian Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Zone at the posi­tion of 63 Degrees, 41 Min­utes South and 133 Degrees, 27 Min­utes East.

Video of the inci­dent

Japan­ese Scram­ble to Spin Shoot­ing Sto­ry

In the after­math of a con­fronta­tion between the crew of the whal­ing ship Nis­shin Maru and the crew of the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin, the Japan­ese pub­lic rela­tions flacks are work­ing over­time to get the spin right.

First, they admit­ted that warn­ing shots were fired, then they cor­rect­ed them­selves and said that only flash grenades were fired at the crew of the Steve Irwin. Then they changed the sto­ry again and described the flash grenades as “warn­ing balls.” By tomor­row morn­ing, they may have it spun it again and may be describ­ing them as “marsh­mal­lows.”

The Japan­ese Coast Guard and the Japan­ese Fish­eries Agency have stat­ed to the media that the devices were flash grenades and that warn­ing shots were fired. Only the Insti­tute for Cetacean Research is deny­ing that warn­ing shots were fired and describ­ing the flash grenades as “warn­ing balls.”

“I think the video tells the sto­ry,” said Sea Shep­herd vol­un­teer Lau­rens De Groot, a for­mer police offi­cer from Rot­ter­dam. “I’m famil­iar with the devices thrown. They are the type of flash grenade that spe­cial­ly trained SWAT teams used to com­bat armed and dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals.”

The Japan­ese claim that Cap­tain Paul Wat­son is lying about being shot was expect­ed. When Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts were tied to the mast of the Yusshin Maru No. 2, the Insti­tute for Cetacean Research claimed it was a lie until the video images were released.

Dr. David Page, the ship’s med­ical offi­cer, has exam­ined and ver­i­fied that there were three injuries sus­tained, all severe bruis­es. Ralph Lowe from Mel­bourne was bruised on the back by an explod­ing flash grenade, and Ani­mal Plan­et cam­era­man Ash­ley Dunn from Launce­s­ton, Tas­ma­nia injured his hip while try­ing to avoid a flash grenade. Cap­tain Wat­son has a large bruise and a cut on the upper left side of his chest.

Dr. Page pried a bul­let from Cap­tain Watson’s Kevlar vest and exam­ined the bruise where the bul­let impact­ed. Watson’s Sea Shep­herd anti-poach­ing badge took up some of the force of the impact, but it also cut the skin beneath after it was man­gled by the bul­let.

Japan claims there were only two Coast Guard offi­cers on the Nis­shin Maru, but Sea Shep­herd pho­tos and videos clear­ly show at least four uni­formed Coast Guards­men.

Japan­ese Chief Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary Nobu­ta­ka Machimu­ra was quot­ed as say­ing to the media, “Is it all right to hurt humans in order to pro­tect whales? I think whales are cute and impor­tant crea­tures, but even so, hurt­ing humans is unfor­giv­able.”

That is quite the spin–accusing Sea Shep­herd crew, who did not injure any­one, of hurt­ing humans after Japan­ese whalers and the Coast Guard delib­er­ate­ly injured human beings to pro­tect an ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tion.

The Japan­ese Coast Guard admit­ted to the media only a few days ago that its offi­cers were armed with rifles and sidearms. Now they are deny­ing they have rifles.

The Japan­ese keep chang­ing their sto­ry.
The most impor­tant fact remains that the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet is ille­gal­ly killing endan­gered whales in a whale sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law and an Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court order.