Sea Shepherd Clashes With Whaling Fleet in Australian Waters

Decem­ber 26th, 2008
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ship Steve Irwin closed in on one of the ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet at 0730 Hours GMT (1930 Hours Syd­ney Time) on Decem­ber 26th off the coast of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry north of the Maw­son Penin­su­la.

Steve Irwin clashes with Kaiko MaruDecem­ber 26th, 2008
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ship Steve Irwin closed in on one of the ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet at 0730 Hours GMT (1930 Hours Syd­ney Time) on Decem­ber 26th off the coast of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry north of the Maw­son Penin­su­la.

The Kaiko Maru emerged from dense fog in front of the Steve Irwin. The Sea Shep­herd crew pur­sued and deliv­ered 10 bot­tles of rot­ten but­ter and 15 bot­tles of a methyl cel­lu­lose and indeli­ble dye mix­ture.

“That is one stinky slip­pery ship,” said Sea Shep­herd 2nd Offi­cer Peter Ham­marst­edt of Swe­den.

The Japan­ese ship was ordered out of the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of Aus­tralia by Aus­tralian cit­i­zen Jeff Hansen from Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia. The mes­sage was deliv­ered in Japan­ese.

As the Steve Irwin came along­side the star­board side of the Kaiko Maru, the whaler steered hard to star­board and struck the Steve Irwin light­ly crush­ing part of the aft port heli­copter deck guard rails on the Sea Shep­herd ship. There was no seri­ous dam­age to either ship.

The Sea Shep­herd crew’s objec­tive was to intim­i­date the Japan­ese fleet and to keep them mov­ing East­ward out of Aus­tralian Ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. The Sea Shep­herd crew have been pur­su­ing the fleet east­ward for a week. There is only 90 miles left before the fleet enters the New Zealand Zone.

“Our objec­tive now is to chase them out of Aus­trali­a’s Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I have a chart here and it clear­ly states that these waters are Aus­tralian EEZ. There is an Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court Order specif­i­cal­ly pro­hibit­ing these ships from whal­ing in these waters. We have informed the whalers they are in con­tempt of this Court rul­ing.”

There is no doubt that Japan­ese whal­ing in Aus­tralian waters has been severe­ly dis­rupt­ed. Since Sat­ur­day, the Sea Shep­herd crew have chased the Japan­ese fleet for 400 miles through heavy fog, dense ice and nasty weath­er. Dur­ing that time they have not been able to kill any whales.

“We still have them on the run and we intend to keep them on the run for as long as our fuel resources allow,” said Cap­tain Wat­son.