Posted under Whaling
The Sea Shepherd crew are now heading South to catch up with the Yusshin Maru No.2 hunter/killer harpoon vessel. They have a tracking device onboard her and it was only a half a days sail away.
Captain Paul Watson:
At 1200 hours, Sea Shepherd changed course and began to head due south, as the Nisshin Maru continued westward. Contact was broken off with the Japanese factory ship at 63 degrees, 42 minutes south and 124 degrees, 56 minutes east.
“We have chased the factory ship for a solid week as they ran full out, back and forth across the Southern Ocean,” said Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd. “After a chase of 1,776 nautical miles and three confrontations, I’ve decided to go investigate what the Yusshin Maru No. 2 is doing. We still have a working tracking device on that ship, so we know that it is less than half a day away and probably up to no good.”
The whaling ships cannot kill whales without having the Nisshin Maru around to process them, and the Nisshin Maru cannot do any work without harpoon vessels to kill the whales. So knowing where the Yusshin Maru No.2 is allows the Steve Irwin to break away from the Nisshin Maru and continue to foil whaling efforts.
The Japanese must be going nuts trying to find the tracking decive onboard their ship.
Sea Shepherd has had an independent film crew onboard, filming on behalf of Animal Planet, since the beginning of the campaign. In a statement issued today from Silver Springs, Maryland, the network said: “The events that have taken place were all captured by Animal Planet’s producers and will be presented through the documentary series WHALE WARS, slated for U.S. broadcast this fall. Animal Planet is thankful that all parties to these conflicts over the last three months to-date are safe and unharmed. The network will showcase these events with a strong journalistic lens that spotlights this global conservation issue that has several nations at odds over the practice of whaling in oceanic territories.”
That series will be one to watch.
Also, Sea Shepherd, have released a photograph and an enlargment pruporting to show a muzzle flash from onboard the Nisshin Maru.
Yusshin Maru factory ship - Look just above the website banner.
No way is that a muzzle flash.
It’s about the right place to be for a shooter but I very seriously doubt it’s a muzzle flash. I’ve fired and seen fired many weapons when I served in the UK army and that doesn’t even look like a muzzle flash. Under closer enlargment with Photoshop it looks square”ish”.
If I was the camera man who took that photograph I’d phone home right away and get some lottery tickets because that would have to be the most luckiest photo ever to be able to catch a muzzle shot with out expecting it!
Since Sea Shepherd say it “maybe” (a big maybe) a muzzle flash then they should at least put the RAW picture file available for download on their website for independant analysis. Also they are filming constantly in HD video so there should be video footage somewhere of the same area of the Nisshin Maru to coroborate the photograph.
Only time will tell.
