JAPANESE whalers face the threat of their worst Antarctic season as conservation activists tighten their hold on the whaling fleet.

A fuel resupply that may be vital to keeping the fleet in the Southern Ocean was being thwarted by the Sea Shepherd activists, who have preoccupied the fleet.  

More than a fortnight into a shortened season, few, if any, whales are believed to have been killed. For the activists, the tantalising prospect is rising that for the first time in decades of protest, whaling will be effectively shut down.  


''We're doing pretty good at it,'' Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said yesterday, ''even though we're not being as proactive as in other seasons.'   '

Last summer the fleet killed 506 minkes and one fin whale, despite what the Institute of Cetacean Research said was 31 days of violent interruptions by Sea Shepherd.

This year the activists' attacks on whaling ships have been limited to skirmishes with flares, stink bombs and attempts to foul propellers with ropes, in contrast to the collisions that climaxed with last year's wreck of Sea Shepherd's fast boat, the Ady Gil.

Instead, the presence of Sea Shepherd's three-ship fleet and its beefed-up helicopter capacity is proving a match for a whaling fleet, which is reduced to four vessels - factory ship Nisshin Maru and three harpoon boats.

Since finding the fleet in pack ice south-east of New Zealand on New Year's Eve, perhaps hours after it arrived in the whaling grounds, Sea Shepherd's boats Steve Irwin and Bob Barker have been tagged by at least two of the three harpoon ships. The group's Australian-registered fast interceptor boat, Gojira, tried to reach a fleeing Nisshin Maru without success, but late on Wednesday found the Korean-owned tanker, Sun Laurel, inside Antarctic Treaty waters and close to the international dateline.

Captain Watson said the Sun Laurel's captain admitted being there to refuel the fleet, but said he had not been able to do so. Sea Shepherd was watching the Sun Laurel, and would block a refuelling attempt.

''I think they're desperate for fuel,'' Captain Watson said. ''As long as our ships can prevent any transfer, the fleet will not be able to extend their killing season beyond the first week in February.'' He believed the Nisshin Maru, informed by the harpoon ships, was staying out of helicopter range.

Sea Shepherd's larger ships, which chose not to engage in a fuel-burning pursuit of the Nisshin Maru, have enough in their tanks for the Steve Irwin to stay in the Antarctic into February, and Bob Barker into March.  

The Institute of Cetacean Research does not comment on the fleet's movements, and made no statement on the Sun Laurel. It has repeatedly called for Australia to stop condoning the group's actions.

seems that whaling is becoming more expensive for the japs. I wonder what the break even point is before they throw in the towel

How so?

Hey still seem to be well supported.

No they don't, but most currently against them won't change regardless of what they do.

Yes Green that is right.  What a good and very worthwhile cause it is.  Please send your donations in.   

Infarction wrote on Jan 16^th, 2011 at 7:07am:


The tactics they are using are dangerous and contravene a number of internationally agreed laws regarding safe navigation and avoidance of collision at sea. Should anyone die as result of these tactics, Sea Shepherd will be solely responsible.  They have already lost one vessel through unsafe navigation and were lucky no one was killed then. Even Greenpeace disowns them and their tactics and they are costing the anti whaling movement the moral high ground.

Say next year because of these tactics Japan decides to send a couple of warships to escort the whaling fleet. What then? Does Australia respond in kind? There is then the prospect of a Southern Ocean version of the Cod War erupting, the potential for serious loss of life and very damaged relations between Australia and Japan.

They are doing incredibly stupid and dangerous things in antarctic waters and telling everyone about it, thinking they have the moral high ground. There is no need to sensationalise that. It is only the good grace of the Japanese that is keeping this from turinging into a disaster.

They are putting up with a lot of crap and illegal activity from Sea Shepherd. If they wanted to be nasty about it they could kill the lot of them and get away with it. Instead they are hoping Australia will come to it's senses and reign them in before any lives are lost.

GREENPEACE STATEMENT - SEA SHEPHERD.


Paul Watson has made many public requests for Greenpeace to reveal the location of the whaling fleet or otherwise cooperate with Sea Shepherd in the Southern Ocean when the ships of both organizations have been there simultaneously.

We passionately want to stop whaling, and will do so peacefully. That's why we won't help Sea Shepherd. Greenpeace is committed to non-violence and we'll never, ever, change that; not for anything. If we helped Sea Shepherd to find the whaling fleet we'd be responsible for anything they did having got that information, and history shows that they've used violence in the past, in the most dangerous seas on Earth. For us, non-violence is a non-negotiable, precious principle. Greenpeace will continue to act to defend the whales, but will never attack or endanger the whalers.

We differ with Paul Watson on what constitutes violence. He states that nobody has ever been harmed by a Sea Shepherd action.  But the test of non-violence is the nature of your action, not whether harm results or not.  There are many acts of violence -- for example, holding a gun to someone's head -- which result in no harm.  That doesn't change their nature. We believe that throwing butryic acid at the whalers, dropping cables to foul their props, and threatening to ram them in the freezing waters of the Antarctic constitutes violence because of the potential consequences. The fact that the consequences have not been realized is irrelevant.

In addition to being morally wrong, we believe the use of violence in protection of whales to be a tactical error. If there's one way to harden Japanese public opinion and ensure whaling continues, it's to use violent tactics against their fleet. It's wrong because it puts human lives at risk, and it's wrong because it makes the whalers stronger in Japan.

Disabling a ship at sea in the Antarctic, regardless of how much one may object to its activities, is not only a callous act of disregard for human life -- it's courting an environmental disaster in one of the most fragile environments in the world.

Such tactics are not only dangerous to the whalers, they are dangerous to the cause of stopping Japanese whaling. Our political analysis is unequivocal: if Japanese whaling is to be stopped, it will be stopped by a domestic decision within the Japanese government to do so.   That's why we have invested heavily in a Greenpeace office in Japan and efforts to speak directly to the Japanese public -- 70 percent of whom are unaware that whaling takes place in the Southern Ocean at all.  A majority of those who are aware of the whaling program, oppose it.   Support for whaling in Japan has been steadily falling for the last decade. Consumption of whale meat is in decline, the cost of the program to taxpayers is being questioned by the business community, and the political costs of the program have created opposition in the Foreign Affairs department in Japan.  All of this progress could be undone by a nationalist backlash.  By making it easy to paint anti-whaling forces as dangerous, piratical terrorists, Sea Shepherd could undermine the forces within Japan which could actually bring whaling to an end.

We've got fairly thick skins here at Greenpeace.  When you challenge powerful forces, you need to be ready to put up with accusations of ulterior motives and hidden agendas. What's unfortunate is when we have to spend time countering friendly fire -- attacks by an organization that shares the same goals as we do.  We don't mind robust disagreements, but we do object to falsehoods.

Paul Watson has claimed that Greenpeace goes to the Antarctic merely to film whales being killed, to wave banners and to bear witness to their deaths -- but does nothing to save them.

This is untrue

Belgarion wrote on Jan 16^th, 2011 at 4:25pm:


You are Joking right?

They were stationary and got mown down by a large ship which turned directly towards them when it had been on a safe course and clearly going to pass by a large distance.

freediver wrote on Jan 17^th, 2011 at 8:54pm:


Do you specialise in only telling someparts of a story?

Their quota also contains fin whales which last time i checked were endangered and until recently they were hunting hump back whales but they backed down on these due to mounting  about that issue

Dnarever wrote on Jan 17^th, 2011 at 11:08pm:




DNA - Do you agree/disagree with Greenpeace's statement?

There must be something seriously afoot when Greenpeace has to come out and defend its position and criticise Sea Shepherd does there not?

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The IWC is a political body. If you want to know whether an animal is endangered, check with the IUCN. They are the relevant authority.

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Dna, you posted the evidence. Try reading it for yourself. This is what it says:

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OK infarction, your turn to decide what to do about this. Your choices are:

1) Turn the IWC into a political body that is fundamentally opposed to any form of whaling and which drives the whaling nations out into the wilderness.

2) Turn the IWC into a body that sustainably manages the commercial whale harvest.

You can't have it both ways.

freediver wrote on Jan 18^th, 2011 at 10:03pm:


Dna, you posted the evidence. Try reading it for yourself. This is what it says:

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Do you not think that a hunted species showing a decline goes to sustainability.

If you read it all you find that their doubt is a bit unreasonable, they say doubt is attributed to the method when the methods are the same as 30 years ago and just getting lower and lower results.

I would think the opposite improved technology over the time should have produced more accurate results.

I would think that the line that they will measure the whales under the ice would invalidate the comparison as they were probably always there and not counted, so to add previously uncounted whales to the mix would only give a false impression of the impact of the whaling.

If you remove that rather unreasonable doubt from the mix then the statment becomes the Minke whale population is in decline due to the level of the Japanese catch and that the current situation is not sustainable.

freediver wrote on Jan 19^th, 2011 at 9:31pm:



They are getting a clearly lower count with the same method.

They incorporate the word possible inferring the whales may have gone somewhere else - Like under the Ice.

I think much more probable that they are hiding in Japanese restaurants where they partisipate in scientific studies on taste & flavour.

They are now going to use methods to count the whales under the Ice but this clearly invalidates comparisons to past data as they do not know how many whales have always been under the ice.

Very clearly and obviously a less meaningfull indication of the population trend but a more accurate total count.

I would think a measure very likley to confirm the trend that has already been accuratly identified but it will take another 10 years.

Dnarever wrote on Jan 20^th, 2011 at 7:50am:


You missed all the more salient points. We are arguing about whether or not the impact on the whale population is even detectable. Doesn't that indicate to you that sustainability is a non-issue?

Belgarion wrote on Jan 20^th, 2011 at 11:01pm:



I believe he is an armchair eco-warrior.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 21^st, 2011 at 11:35am:



I can see. normal use of eye sight is all that is required when it is so obvious.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 21^st, 2011 at 11:35am:



Actually, as I recall, the reason the Gil was stationary was because they had run out of fuel and were awaiting refueling from the Barker.  I'd agree that the Gil was a poor choice and should never have been sent to the Antarctic in the first place.

As far as SS's present activities, the last report from the Southern Ocean was on January 15, 2011 when they said they were following the Korean tanker-supply ship for the whaling fleet into a storm and being followed by two of the Japanese harpoon vessels.  Since then, there has been nothing except editorials by Watson and others that could have been written at any time.  You'd think there would have been a report by now on what happened in this past week.

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So why is it you focus on arguing whether the impact on stocks is even detectable and ignore whether it is sustainable? Do you even have an opinion on the sustainability? I also asked you previously whether there are any other wild harvests where the scientists have such difficulty confirming whether there has been any impact at all on stocks. What does it tell you about the sustainability of the harvest if we can't even be sure whether stocks have declined?

Think about it.

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So it would be easy for you to give an example?

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Not necessarily. Do the scientists involved claim any implications for sustainability, or this yet another example of you thinking you know better without doing any actual research?

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If whales are as intelligent as people make out, this is a very real possibility given that there are ships trying to kill them.

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So you assume that wild harvests become unsustainable despite scientists being unable to tell whether the population had even declined, even though you cannot think of a single example? In that case, please explain your assumption?

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No. We have a process that either has started to cause a reduction, or has for some unfathomable (to you) reason, caused the whales to hide from ships.

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Can you explain the logic behind that?
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This too please.

Belgarion wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2011 at 11:09pm:



I believe that the inverse is true


This shows the vision from the BoB Barker and the Maru2 - which both clearly show the Maru going to miss by a long way and then turn into the Ady Gill.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Qyrd27kvU&feature=related


Vision from the Ady Gill Shows the same thing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brw6JN0lQXY&feature=related

It is difficult to deciede if you guys do not believ what you see or only see what you want to believe.

Dnarever wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2011 at 12:56am:


OK... The rule of the road says "action to avoid collision should be positive, obvious and made in good time". Given that both vessels were engaged in activity outside the normal behaviour of ships going about their lawful business, we may safely say they both ignored this one.

Which brings us to..

"15. Crossing situations

When two power-driven vessels are crossing, the vessel which has the other on the starboard side must give way and avoid crossing ahead of her.

Ady Gill had maneuvered to place Shonan Maru as the give way vessel and was stopped in the water, then, as Shonan Maru altered course, probably  to bring Ady Gill in effective range of her water cannon, Ady Gill accelerated in what was a deliberate move to ensure a collision.

The presence of the other Sea Shepherd  vessel, Bob Barker, is also a factor. From the video taken of the incident this vessel appears to be directly ahead of Shonan Maru thus presenting a possible risk of collision and possibly playing a part in the maneuvers of Shonan Maru. The NZ enquiry found both vessels at fault :http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/ady-gil--and-whalers-both-at-fault...
however  the video evidence clearly shows the actual collision was caused by the actions of Ady Gil.

Belgarion wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2011 at 2:21am:



What does it say about a ship deliberatly changing onto a collision course  with a stationary vessel as the Maru 2 obviously did.

Belgarion wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2011 at 2:21am:



The Ady Gill was statioary with the Maru on a course to pass by at least 30 mtrs and probably more like 70 mtrs till the Maru turned directly at the Ady Gill at speed.

The Ady Gill had not manouvered to place the Maru anywhere.

The Ady Gill brought up power too late in what looks like an attempt to manouver


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Rubbish - The film from the Barker clearly shows the Ady Gill Between the Maru and the Barler - this means that obviously untill the Maru Changed direction towards the Gill it was going away from or parrallel to the Barker.

Perhaps they had more to go on than a dodgy little video.

So the whalers didn't sink the Ady Gill - Sea Shepherd did.

Belgarion wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2011 at 11:16am:



The Ady Gill brought power up very late and I would agree that their panic action probably made the collision worse but no doubt their was going to be impact anyway.

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They did take early and substantial action but it was not to keep clear it was to deliberatly initiate a collision or very near collision course.

Had the Maru 2 maintained its original line it would have passed probably 70 mtrs away from the Ady Gill with no chance of an accident.

freediver wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2011 at 10:00pm:


You seem to be talanted at identifying what was not said.


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I had no doubt you would, I also have no doubt that had the Maru not been turned directly towards the Ady Gill there would have been no collision, Had the Ady gill needed to move 70 mtrs it would have been a tad more obvious.

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And if the Japanese were not illegally poaching whales in the southern ocean then neither would have been there.

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The damaged boat would have been more valuable to sea shepherd had it reached port. I doubt the decision was as simple as you suggest - yes I have seen the quotes and the captain thinks his boat could have been saved.

Life_goes_on wrote on Jan 24^th, 2011 at 12:25am:


You mean that running a commercial fishing opperation disguised as a scientific study is using a loop hole, I would think more like corruption and dishonesty at a national level.

If you go out there and catch whales for a study you would find yourself in a lot of trouble - it is illegal.

Sea Shepherd has an objective - we intend to abolish all whaling activities in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. We are here to defend the integrity of the sanctuary. It is a simple, uncomplicated objective and we have very straightforward rules of engagement. We have not and will not cause a single injury to the whalers, although we will obstruct their ships and equipment. We will not break any international law in pursuit of this objective; Sea Shepherd has not been charged or reprimanded for any offense related to blocking and intercepting these whaling operations. Finally, we will not compromise on our objective – we will not accept any whaling, regardless of whom it is done by, anytime in the sanctuary.  

In reference to the argument that our efforts are entrenching on Japanese resistance to end whaling, we can only remind people that the alternative is to surrender to the will of the whalers, and that we simply shall not do. The same argument was said during the movement to oppose apartheid in South Africa. Yes, the white South African regime did entrench but then ultimately they fell under the weight of international public opinion.  

Sea Shepherd’s strategy is to focus on causing financial damage to the whalers. Our intent is to economically sink the Japanese whaling fleet, bankrupt them, and then drive them out of business.    

The days down here in the Southern Ocean are long – literally. The miles of ocean we have covered are immense and the weather and ice dangers are very real and always close.

However, crew morale grows with each day that we stop the whalers from whaling. Each day brings us sightings of whales unmolested by the cruel harpoons, which serve as daily reminders for the crew of why we are here and whom we represent. Today we saw a pod of orcas, but since arriving in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, we have been given the pleasure of the company from the humpback, Minke, fin, blue, pilot and sperm whales.

These whales are our clients and they are the reason we come down here for four months of every year. We are here to represent their interests. They are our clients, and our objective is to eradicate the obscenity of whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. We will succeed in realizing this objective no matter how long it takes or how dangerous it becomes…we will end whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary!  

freediver wrote on Jan 24^th, 2011 at 10:03pm:


I would have had it on a trailer on display in every major city of the world showing the damage with the film showing how it happened.

Infarction wrote on Jan 25^th, 2011 at 5:41am:


Not conned. The Japs are not breaking international law. Are you suggesting otherwise?

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What a load of self righteous and self indulgent bullshit. These sea shepherd dickheads get off on pretending to be on some great crusade when in reality they are little kids playing pirates.

This isn't a game though, and when someone is killed by their actions (note: when, not if) we will hear the whining self justification and excuses a spoiled child uses when caught out doing something wrong.