Struggle stepped up as another whaling ship is sabotaged in Norway

“Nor­way announced an increased quo­ta of minke whales so we decid­ed to increase our quo­ta of sunken whalers” — AGENDA 21

“Nor­way announced an increased quo­ta of minke whales so we decid­ed to increase our quo­ta of sunken whalers” — AGENDA 21

Anoth­er whal­ing ves­sel was sab­o­taged a few days ago, on April 2nd, near­ly a year since the last attempt­ed sink­ing of the Skar­bakk, anoth­er Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel. The attack was claimed by Agen­da 21, a group respon­si­ble for last years sab­o­tage and a string of oth­er actions against Nor­way’s whal­ing indus­try. Using the name of a 1992 Unit­ed Nations Con­fer­ence on the Envi­ron­ment, the group is a spin off from the more known Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and promised Nor­way that if they did not com­ply with inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law, they would sink their whal­ing ships.

It was­n’t an emp­ty threat, with Cap­tain Paul Wat­son super­vis­ing the sink­ing of two ships; the Nybrae­na in 1992 and the Senet in 1994. The anony­mous and covert goup Agen­da 21 then took over with the scut­tling of the Elin-Toril in 1996. Claimed on the web­site of ani­mal rights mag­a­zine Bite Back, the activists explain: “Entry was made through the wheel­house. The engine room was accessed by remov­ing the locked door from its frame using axe and crow­bar. Two sea valves were opened ful­ly sub­merg­ing the engine and elec­tri­cal sys­tems.”

Relat­ed Fea­tures: Schnews: Ships in the Fight | Nor­we­gian Whal­ing Ship Scut­tled | The Whale Wars — Sea Shep­herd Returns From Antarc­ti­ca | Japan issues arrest war­rant for Not­ting­ham activist | Arrests As Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion Fails To Pro­tect Whales | Not­ting­ham Activist Returns From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion In Antar­ti­ca | Sea Shep­herd activists injured as Japan­ese mil­i­tary open fire | Activists Held Hostage By Japan­ese Whalers In South­ern Ocean | Whalers use Pub­lic Rela­tions to twist the truth

Links: Unit­ed Nations Agen­da 21 | Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety | Ocean Defence top­ic page

Local news media report­ed that the sab­o­tage was dis­cov­ered before the ship could sink. An alarm alert­ed the ship’s own­er, Leif Einar Karlsen, who lives near­by. He attempt­ed to slow the water that was com­ing in through the open valves, but by the time the fire depart­ment arrived, the engine room was under sev­er­al feet of water. Karlsen has pledged to repair the Sofie and begin killing minke whales in May.

It has been one year since the last attempt­ed sink­ing of a whal­ing ship in Nor­way. In April 2009, an attempt was made to sink the whal­ing ship “Skar­bakk” when it was moored at Hen­ningsvaer, Nor­way. In August 2007, the whal­ing ship “Willassen Senior” was sunk in the har­bor in Svolvaer (the boat was only a stone’s throw away from where the Sofie was docked).

The Sofie is the sev­enth Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel to come under attack for ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1992. After the attack on the Sofie, the head of a Nor­we­gian whal­ing orga­ni­za­tion com­plained to the Nor­we­gian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, “It is out­ra­geous that this can be done year after year with­out any­one being caught.”