Voice from the Deep!

Captain Paul Whatson on board the Steve Irwin has requested that he be issued with an Australian arrest warrant to serve to the Japanese Fleet in regards to the illegal whaling.

“The Japanese whalers are illegally killing whales in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory,” said Captain Watson. “This area is clearly marked on the nautical charts as the Australian Antarctic Economic Exclusion Zone and the Japanese fleet is in violation of an Australian court order specifically prohibiting them from killing whales in Australian waters. We are ready to serve this warrant on behalf of the Australian government and I have Australian crew-members on my crew quite willing to deliver the warrant to the captains of these Japanese ships engaged in whale poaching operations. We are prepared to make a citizen’s arrest to uphold Australian law prohibiting whaling in these waters.”  

I seriously doubt the Australians have the backbone to comply with his request. They may “talk the talk”… but they don’t “walk the walk”! Besides, money talks louder than the screams of the whales  (yes, they do scream) as they are speared with an  explosive harpoon (It usually takes more than one to kill a large whale).

If as expected, Australia refuses to supply an arrest warrant to Sea Shepherd, Captain Watson will intervene against the Japanese fleet in accordance with the United Nations World Charter for Nature [Doz: See sections 21 thru 24 at the bottom] that allows for non-governmental organizations to uphold international conservation law.

“We need to create another international incident,” said Captain Paul Watson. “We need to keep the pressure on to stop Japan’s illegal poaching of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Lack of enforcement by Australia and other nations is forcing Sea Shepherd to implement risky measures to stop the deadly harpoons. I cannot stomach this slaughter of these gentle giants any longer - if it means pushing the envelope, we are ready and willing to take the risks.”

Captain Watson has questions for Environment Minister Peter Garrett.

“What will it take to get Australia to enforce the law against Japan?  What will it take to have Japan and Uruguay treated equally under the law? Why is Uruguayan poaching of toothfish not tolerated by Australia but Japanese whaling is? Why the double standard? When will the deaths of these whales be taken seriously?”

And two final questions. “Does someone have to die or be seriously injured down here in these remote waters before Australia takes enforcement of the law seriously? What is Australia prepared to do if the Japanese whalers kill one of my crew or myself?”

“We are not coming down here to hang banners or take pictures,” said Captain Watson. “We are not a bunch of semi-serious ocean posers. We are heading back to the whaling fleet with a purpose and that purpose is to do whatever we can and take whatever risks we must, to shut down Japanese poaching operations and to save the lives of the whales.”

 I read this somewhere on the net…

If the same methods used in farming whales were adopted for cattle, you would have quad bikes with a harpoon gun mounted on the front racing around farmland after cows.

After the cow was harpooned, it would be left to scream (just like whales scream) as they started to bleed to death in agony.

Some time later, they would be pumped up with air and have a flag stuck in them as their life ebbed away and their blood spread over the field. Eventually, a large flat topped truck would turn up and the poor cow would be winched aboard, probably still alive, to be hacked to pieces.

To get the whale scenario - just add water!

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I just came across this interesting video on the ‘Tube… It’s a news report from Australian TV

Sea Shepherd is now well on it’s way back to the hunting grounds and is on the prowl for the Japanese fleet.

Maybe they should use a marine band direction finder on their helicopter to try and track the Japanese fleet. From about 5,000 feet altitude they should be able to track a 25 watt transmitter on the marine band at about 140Km range.

All they need is a bearing to steer on…

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Sea Shepherd Launches Operation Migaloo II
The Hunt for the Japanese Whale Poachers Resumes…

After twelve days of repairs, refueling, re-crewing, re-supplying and re-provisioning, the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin is returning to the Southern Ocean. 

The estimated time for departure is 2000 hours Melbourne time on Thursday February 14. So if you are local get down the docks and give them a good send off!

“A special thank-you to Australia,” said Captain Paul Watson. “You helped to send the Steve Irwin back to sea as a Valentine’s Day gift to the whales.”

Donations of money for fuel, donations of food and supplies flooded onto the decks of the whale conservation ship during the brief stay in Victoria docklands.

The Steve Irwin dropped off 16 volunteer crewmembers in Melbourne on February 2nd and 19 volunteers have joined the crew. Eleven crewmembers have been with the campaign from the beginning.

The 32 crew, 8 women and 24 men returning to the Southern Oceans represent 10 different nationalities. In addition to 15 Australians, crewmembers have joined from New Zealand, Canada, the U.S.A., Sweden, South Africa, the Netherlands, the U.K. Spain, and Japan. 

 The Steve Irwin intends to harass and intervene against illegal Japanese whaling for the next four to five weeks. This should stop them to the end of the whaling season. The fleet’s operations were shut down for more than three weeks in January. Sea Shepherd intends to shut them down again.

“In January we prevented them from slaughtering whales for three weeks, we cost the Japanese over two million dollars in fuel during the pursuit and we exposed their illegal whaling activities worldwide and most importantly we got the story into the Japanese media.  This provoked a real debate in Japan on the cost of whaling to Japan’s reputation,” said Captain Paul Watson.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society does not intend to surrender the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to the poachers. After this season, Captain Paul Watson is working to secure a 2nd ship with the objective of mounting a non-stop pursuit for the 2008/2009 whaling season.

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Round Two for Sea Shepherd’s Operation Migaloo

By Captain Paul Watson

The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin is refueled, repaired, re-supplied, re-crewed and re-energized to depart from Melbourne on Valentine’s Day bound for the Southern Ocean to intervene against the on-going massacre of whales by the outlaw whaling fleet from Japan.

In January we discovered that we can stop the whalers by finding them, pursuing them, and harassing them. We initiated an international incident and we shut down the slaughter of the whales for more than three weeks. Most importantly for the first time ever this issue was dramatized in the Japanese media and it is escalating into a costly embarrassment for the Japanese government.

There is no question that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society pushes the envelope on this issue. Someone has to and we don’t mind the constant stream of abuse and name calling. If governments don’t have any respect for us, we have even less respect for governments.The fact is that if the government of Australia would simply enforce the Australian court ruling and uphold their obligations to enforce international conservation law we would not have to be down in those remote waters placing our ship and crew in harm’s way to protect defenseless whales from Japanese poachers.And poachers are what they are, no different than elephant and mountain gorilla poachers in Africa or tiger poachers in India. The Japanese whalers are criminals with powerful connections and incredible wealth and that makes them a sort of whaler’s mafia.

But this is not the first time we have tackled such bastions of corrupt power. Last summer we busted open the Ecuadorian shark fin mafia, seized 45,000 illegal shark fins, arrested over a dozen poachers and smugglers and created an international incident that exposed the extent of the illegal trade in shark fins out of the Galapagos National Park Marine Reserve. Of course, we came under attack from all the Ecuadorian politicians that were implicated and the shark poachers put a $25,000 reward on my head. I was not even given the option of dead or alive - simply dead. But if saving the world was easy than everyone would be doing it.

Our second campaign this year to the Southern Oceans is called Operation Migaloo II and our objective is to find the Japanese fleet again and to shut down their illegal operations once more.

I am quite confident that we can do it and thanks to our growing base of support around the world and especially in Australia we are getting stronger and becoming more effective.

If we can stop the Japanese fleet for another three weeks we will be able to demonstrate that constant pursuit can be the key to stopping the slaughter from the beginning of the whaling season to the end. This will require Sea Shepherd returning next year with two ships with the second ship departing three weeks after the first to relieve the first, and then continuing constant relays over the four month period.

For only a few million dollars the entire illegal whaling operation can be shut down permanently.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is not a protest organization. We specialize in interventions against illegal operations only. We are empowered to do so by virtue of the United Nations World Charter for Nature which allows for non-governmental organizations to intervene to uphold international conservation law. That is the reason that after three decades of operations in opposition to high seas marine poaching operations, we have never had a felony conviction. We have also never caused nor sustained a single injury.

We can end the slaughter of whales in the Southern Oceans by simply enforcing existing international and Australian laws.

Captain Paul Watson

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