Norewegian Whaler Scuttled

Sea Shep­herd News
2/9/2007

Sunken Whaler Was a Cru­el Killer

It is not a sur­prise that an unknown per­son (or per­sons) tar­get­ed the Willassen Senior — the out­law Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on the evening of August 30, 2007.

Scuttled Norwegian whalerSea Shep­herd News
2/9/2007

Sunken Whaler Was a Cru­el Killer

It is not a sur­prise that an unknown per­son (or per­sons) tar­get­ed the Willassen Senior — the out­law Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on the evening of August 30, 2007.

Under­cov­er video of a Nor­we­gian whale hunt, tak­en in May 2005, was released today by the World Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Ani­mals (WSPA) and the Envi­ron­men­tal Inves­ti­ga­tion Agency (EIA). This footage is believed to be the first of its kind cap­tured by a non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion (NGO) in over a decade. Though Nor­way claims to be the best in the busi­ness when it comes to accu­ra­cy and rel­a­tive humane­ness of com­mer­cial whale kills, the footage tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

In this video, the Willassen Senior was doc­u­ment­ed pur­su­ing a Piked (minke) whale in chop­py con­di­tions. The whale was har­pooned and sub­se­quent­ly rid­dled with bul­lets from a high-pow­ered rifle. It spent 15 min­utes div­ing, resur­fac­ing, and rolling about on the sur­face in extreme agony before it final­ly suc­cumbed to the attack and died.

Click here to view the footage tak­en by WSPA and EIA in May 2005.

The Willassen Senior is the fifth Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel to come under attack for ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1992. The com­plete list to date includes:

The Nybrae­na — scut­tled dock­side in Decem­ber 1992 (Reine, Lofoten Islands).
The Senet — Scut­tled dock­side in Jan­u­ary 1994 (Fredricks­berg, Nor­way).
The Elin-Toril — Severe­ly dam­aged in 1997.
The Morild — Sunk in 1998.
The Williassen Senior — Sunk in August 2007 (Svolvaer, Lofoten Islands).

Watch video of the sunken vess­sel

More info @ : www.seashepherd.org