Voice from the Deep!

It looks like Sea shepherd are wasting their breathe again by asking Greenpeace to co-operate during the next whale hunting season…

I actually hope that Greenpace will “snap out of it” and they will all be singing off the same hymn sheet!

An Appeal for Cooperation from Captain Paul Watson

Okay, here we go again, but nothing ventured and nothing gained.

This is the official 2008 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society request to the Greenpeace Foundation to work in cooperation with each other to defend the whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for the 2008 and 2009 Antarctic summer.

The targeted whales need all the help they can get when the Japanese whaling fleet returns to illegally slaughter endangered whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in December 2008.

During the last season we stopped them for 50% of the time and cut their quota by 50%. If only we had two ships and sufficient funding we could stop them up to 80% percent and perhaps to 100%. But we are a small organization with only one fast ship to deploy and we need to raise funds to finance the campaign.

But there is a solution. If both the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Greenpeace Foundation could cooperate in a joint coordinated effort to oppose the Japanese whaling interests we could stop the pirate whalers cold in Antarctica.

Every year Sea Shepherd has supplied Greenpeace with the Japanese coordinates when we have found the fleet although Greenpeace has refused to return the favor. And yes there have indeed been harsh words between Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace over the years but the word Greenpeace does include the word “peace” and therefore I am appealing to Greenpeace once again in the name of peaceful cooperation to work with Sea Shepherd to protect the whales.

Let the past stay in the past and let’s deal with the present with a focus on a constructive future. There really is no practical reason why Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd cannot work together.

After all, I am an original Greenpeacer and a co-founder, not just of the Greenpeace Foundation in 1972 but also of Greenpeace International in 1979.

Both Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace work towards our goals in a non-violent manner although our definition of non-violence is not harming sentient life. As Martin Luther King once wrote, “violence cannot be committed upon a non-sentient object.”

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has never caused a single physical injury to a single person in our entire 31 years of operations. Nor have we ever had any crew convicted of a felony crime anywhere in the world. And we have never been sued.

The Dalai Lama is a Sea Shepherd supporter and he describes the Sea Shepherd approach as being consistent with the spirit of Hayagriva or the compassionate aspect of Buddha’s wrath meaning that we should never injure anyone but sometimes we need to be intimidating to intervene against violence.

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The Steve Irwin is low on fuel and have to leave the Southern Ocean and head back to port.

There are only 10 days left in the whaling season…

Sea Shepherd:

There are less than 10 days left in the Japanese whaling season, and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ship, the Steve Irwin, has reached the limit of its fuel reserves.

“We have no alternative but to retreat from the Southern Ocean,” said Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd. “We have just enough fuel to make it back to port. We’ve done everything we can do down here for this season, and it has been an enormous success. I believe we have saved the lives of over 500 whales.”

Since departing Melbourne on February 14, the Steve Irwin has covered over 6,000 nautical miles chasing the Japanese fleet from as far west as 96 Degrees East to as far east as 136 Degrees East. The majority of the chase took place inside the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters between 62 Degrees South and 65 Degrees South. In total, the Steve Irwin pursued the Japanese whaling fleet for over 3,500 nautical miles. The Nisshin Maru was tailed and harassed for over 1,800 of those miles.

Sea Shepherd can reliably report that no whales were killed during the 17-day period of February 23 to March 10. Added to the 3 weeks that Japanese whalers were prevented from killing whales in January, that brings it to a total of 5½ weeks—or nearly half the whaling season—in which no whales were killed.

“Our success will be reflected in the final kill figures,” said 1st Officer Peter Brown. “There is no doubt in my mind that we have made a significant impact on their profits this season, and I am assuming they are not very happy.”

In response to the International Whaling Commission’s condemnation of Sea Shepherd’s interventions in the Southern Ocean, Captain Watson said, “While they were in London talking about whales, we were down here actually protecting the whales. So they can condemn us until the cows come home, but I think we served our clients, the whales, as best we could, and every whale’s life saved has been a victory for us. We feel satisfied for the lives we have saved, and we feel remorse for the lives we were unable to save. The IWC members should feel ashamed for allowing Japan’s criminal poaching activities to continue.”

Sea Shepherd will work to secure a second ship to return to the Southern Ocean next season along with the Steve Irwin, although it is hoping that Japan will choose instead to withdraw from continued illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.

“We don’t enjoy this conflict with the Japanese,” said Captain Paul Watson. “We do this to defend the whales, not to offend Japan, but if we are offending Japan by defending the whales, then that is the way it must be.”

So… same again next year ?

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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.

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The Sea Shepherd report on the matter.

SYDNEY (AFP) —

The captain of a protest ship harassing Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean said he was shot in a clash Friday and his crew members pelted with flash grenades, injuring one.

The captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship, Paul Watson, said he was shot in his bullet-proof vest, although Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Japan had informed him only warning devices were fired.

“What hit me was a bullet, it wasn’t a flash grenade, we pulled it out of the vest,” Watson told ABC radio.

He said the crew of the Steve Irwin was throwing stink bombs at the whaling ship the Nisshin Maru when coast guards posted on the Japanese vessel responded with flash grenades.

He said he felt a thud during the confrontation and later found a bullet lodged in his kevlar vest, which he said hit with enough force to bend a badge he was wearing under the protective device and bruise his chest.

“If I wasn’t wearing the vest, it would have been pretty serious,” he said.

Watson did not detail the injuries of the crew member he said was hurt by a flash grenade.

Smith said Japan initially advised Australian officials that shots had been fired but later clarified details of the incident.

“Japanese officials have now advised the Australian embassy in Tokyo that during the incident in the Southern Ocean this afternoon, three warning balls — also known as flashbangs — had been fired,” Smith said in a statement.

“Japanese officials have advised that these devices are designed to make a loud noise but not to injure, and that no gunshots had been fired.”

The latest high-seas clash comes after Sea Shepherd activists on Monday hurled stink bombs on the Japanese whaling ship, slightly injuring three crew and coast guard members onboard, according to Japan.

The Sea Shepherd said it threw rotten butter that does not hurt anyone. Japanese officials described the substance as butyric acid, which is stinging to the eyes.

So.. what looks like a mortar being fired from the Steve Irwin was more than likely a flashbang grenade thrown from the Japanese ship and you see the smoke of it’s detonation onboard the Steve Irwin.

Dr. David Page was videotaped prying the bullet from Captain Watson’s Kevlar vest. “You have been hit by a bullet,” he said. The Kevlar vest and anti-poaching badge effectively saved Captain Watson’s life. Additional injuries were sustained by crewmembers Ashley Dunn and Ralph Lowe. Dunn, 35, from Launceston, Australia suffered a hip injury when he tried to get out of the way of the exploding grenades. Lowe, 33, from Melbourne, Australia received bruises to his back when one of the flash grenades exploded behind him.

It’s inevitable that with armed personnel that things will escalate into a shooting match at some time. That’s the reason why all the Steve Irwin crew nearly always wear bullet-proof vests when on deck at confrontations.

In the aftermath of a confrontation between the crew of the whaling ship Nisshin Maru and the crew of the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin, the Japanese public relations flacks are working overtime to get the spin right.

Here is the audio interview from ABC Australia.

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