Voice from the Deep!

The Sea Shepherd documentary “Whale Wars” has premiered on US TV (Animal Planet) on the 7th November…

The Animal Planet film crew were onboard the Steve Irwin vessel during last years confrontation with the Japanese whaling fleet.

Here is some of the action…

Anyone know when it’s out on UK TV ?

This is all to start again at the end of the month when Sea Shepherd ship the “Steve Irwin” sails again in to the devil’s maw of the Southern Ocean.

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Operation Musashi 2008/2009

The Japanese whaling fleet will depart from Japan next month. The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin will also depart at the end of November from Brisbane, Australia. The Japanese fleet and the Steve Irwin should arrive in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around the same time. Sea Shepherd will not depend on the government of Australia to help the whales. Greenpeace may or may not send a ship southward. The Sea Shepherd crew have been preparing the Steve Irwin for the return to Antarctica and are prepared to take on the Japanese whalers alone. A new helicopter deck and hangar has been added and the helicopter has been completely overhauled. New equipment has been secured including a new hydraulic crane and fast interceptor boats. The international crew will be Australian, Canadian, American, British, French, Dutch, South African, Swedish, Chilean, and even include a Japanese crew member.

Last summer, Japan sent coast guard officers down on its whaling ships. This year Greenpeace believes the Japanese will be sending a coast guard ship to protect its whaling fleet.

Steve Shallhorn is the chief executive of Greenpeace Australia-Pacific. “It was reported in a Japan fisheries magazine some weeks ago that the equivalent of $8 million has been allocated to the Japanese coast guard to protect the fleet,” he said.

“So, we made the assumption that that amount of money will be used to send a vessel down there.”

Japan will not say if it is sending the coast guard down to Antarctica, but Sea Shepherd will sail out of Brisbane next month for what it calls an aggressive but non-violent confrontation with the Japanese whaling fleet.

Mr Watson says he is also ready to confront the Japanese coast guard.

“We’re concerned of course. But I don’t care if they send the whole Japanese Navy down there; we’re not going to be intimidated from going down there. We have no intention of retreating from them,” he said.

“We’ve cost them their profits for last three years and we’re going to continue to do that. We’ve had over the last 30 years a lot of confrontations, including confrontations with the Soviet and Norwegian Navies, who’ve fired on us. So, I’m not too concerned about them.”

“We have a few surprises for the whalers this year,” said Sea Shepherd 2nd officer Peter Hammarstedt of Sweden. “We intend to be more aggressive and even more relentless in our interventions. We do not intend to witness the killing of any whales; we intend to make sure no whales are killed on our watch.”

Go Sea Shepherd, we are behind you 100%

GreenPeace Pulls Out

As the Sea Shepherd society prepares for an escalation with the Japanese, Mr Shallhorn has announced Greenpeace will not be going back down to Antarctica this summer.

“Greenpeace has been down in the Southern Ocean for the past three years, so we’ve taken the decision over the last couple of weeks that really what we need to do is focus on the campaign inside Japan,” he said.

“It’s only because there’s not enough opposition inside Japan that the fleet goes down to the Southern Ocean every year. And that’s where we believe the decisive battle is going to be fought.”

Mr Watson says Greenpeace are scared of the Japanese coast guard.

“Shame on them. I mean, they’ve been collecting money for the last 10 months to go down there and that’s millions of dollars they’ve collected,” he said.

This is typical of GreenPeace… Ask for your money to return to the Southern Ocean and stick your well earned cash in the bank instead!

“You know, we’re not even able to come to close to fundraising at that scale, and they’re not going down. Of course, the announcement coincided with the announcement by Japan they’re going to send a gun boat. So, maybe they’re frightened; I don’t know.”

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