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.

1 Comment »

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.”

Comments Off

David Jonas, a New Hampshire resident, described the tense confrontation to The Canadian Press early Sunday after he was released from custody in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

He said an RCMP tactical squad boarded the ship at 11 a.m. ADT Saturday while the Farley Mowat’s crew members were observing the annual seal hunt in the Cabot Strait – the body of water between Cape Breton and Newfoundland. 

Google Earth link to the locations involved

“We were placed under arrest, forced to lie down on the deck,” said Jonas, a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. “We were then escorted to the stern of the ship and kept under armed guard.”

Jonas said some of his shipmates were handcuffed once aboard the coast guard icebreaker Des Groseilliers, which brought them to port in Sydney late Saturday night.

Jonas said the Mowat’s 17 crew members were told they would be charged with violating Canada’s sealing laws.

However, once on shore, they were told the charges would be dropped against all but the captain and chief officer, who both made a brief appearance early Sunday in a Sydney courtroom.

Jonas said Canada has no legal grounds to detain them.

“Canada did not have a right to board us and bring us to Sydney. We were in international waters. We’re a Dutch-registered vessel and had the right of free passage.”

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has insisted the Farley Mowat was seized legally in Canada’s “internal waters.”

The Farley Mowat’s crew maintains their vessel never entered Canada’s 12-nautical-mile territorial limit, but Hearn said the Fisheries Act gave him the authority to take action beyond that line.

In Sydney, several members of the Mowat’s crew were detained Sunday after they refused to comply with immigration and customs checks, Jonas said. They refused the sign the immegration forms.

“Half of us have denied that opportunity, and will be interned,” he said. “It’s clearly an unusual circumstance for all involved.”

Until they’re released, the crew is going on a hunger strike, Jonas added.

The Farley Mowat will be detained in Sydney for as long at it takes Transport Canada officials to conduct a full inspection, Hearn said. No doubt they will drag their feet about it and delay it as long as possible.

Sea shepherd had the last laugh…

It took the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society a little while to arrange the $10,000 bail for the Two officers of an anti-sealing vessel arrested over the weekend.

You see, they decided to pay the ransom in Dubloonies. (2 Dollar coins)

“We have bail. We just came from the bank … We intend to give them $5,000 in coins, toonies,” said crew member Shannon Mann. “They called us pirates all the time so we thought it would be funny.”

Yes it is.. lol

I wonder if the RCMP will delete the video and images stored on the computer/laptops onboard ?

116 Comments »

At 0700 Hours (PST) and 1100 Hours Atlantic time the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel Farley Mowat was attacked by officers from two Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers the Des Groseilliers and the Sir Wifred Grenfell.

An armed boarding party took control of the Dutch registered vessel in international waters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence well beyond the Canadian twelve mile territorial limit.

Violence and intimidation both on and off the ice

Captain Paul Watson was speaking by phone with Farley Mowat communications officer Shannon Mann when he heard the voices of men screaming for the crew to fall to the floor. The men carried guns according to Mann and could be heard by Captain Watson threatening the Farley Mowat’s crew. As Captain Watson was speaking with Shannon Mann, the Satellite phone went dead and nothing more has been heard from the Sea Shepherd crew.

Canada’s federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn issued a statement on Saturday saying the government was acting in the best interests of the sealers.

A spokeswoman from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said three Australians were believed to be on board.

“We’re seeking to confirm the safety and welfare of three Australians allegedly on board the Sea Shepherd’s Dutch vessel Farley Mowat which is currently on its way to Nova Scotia,” she said.

The Candian fishermen sell seal pelts mostly to the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China, as well as blubber for oil. The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972. The EU is soon to follow in banning of seal products.

US Humane Society video 

Cruelty documented on the ice

Comments Off