...This blog of Pauls is so long that it would take ages of pages to paste so heres the link to it ok...itz a great read  arrrrrrrrrrgh!!!

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=165320542&blogId=488244329 

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Seeing those shark fins seized in Brazil reminds me of Sharkwater.  That is a movie I cannot get out of my head...very emotional for me, and I really cannot talk about it too much right now.  All I can say is that it hurts to see all those fins and all that destruction.

Jen

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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Spain Opposes the Seal Slaughter

Category: Pets and Animals

Spain Joins the War Against Canada's Cruel Slaughter of Seals One by one the nations of Europe are condemning the vicious slaughter of seals as the Canadian government continues to support a small group of seal pup killers in the face of escalating global opposition. This week, Spain joined with the defenders of the seals in condemning the horrific slaughter, voting to support a total ban on all seal products in the European Union. The vote of March 25th follows the March 17th vote by Ireland to ban all seal products, joining the Netherlands, France, Germany and other nations in opposing the seal slaughter. Canada is becoming increasing more isolated in their position in support of the annual massacre of hundreds of thousands of seal pups. Canadian Members of Parliament and Senators are receiving tens of thousands of e-mails condemning the killing. Calls for boycotts of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada are increasing. Demonstrations are taking place in cities around the world sending clear messages to the Canadian government that it's time for Canada to join the 21st century and do away with barbaric industries like sealing. Some Canadian politicians are complaining that foreigners should not be interfering in Canadian issues, yet these same politicians insist that foreigners buy seal products. Canada has even threatened trade retaliation against nations opposing the slaughter. "As a Canadian citizen, I welcome and applaud people from around the world who are speaking up and demanding the end to the atrocities on the ice," said Captain Paul Watson. "The majority of Canadians are opposed to the slaughter but all the Canadian elected politicians save one (Senator Mac Harb) support the cruel industry because in Canada, politicians are obedient to the party line at the cost of ignoring the voice of the people who elected them. However, the politicians can't ignore the power of economics and thus the key to destroying the sealing industry is to remove the markets for seal products." The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society applauds the Spanish decision and welcomes Spain into the list of nations that condemn cruelty to these gentle creatures.

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Tuesday, March 03, 2009

The Whale-Killing Axis of Evil Openly Engages in Illegal Wildlife Trafficking

The three most notorious whale killing nations on Earth are collaborating to engage in the illegal international trafficking in endangered species.

Norway and Iceland are unlawfully shipping Fin and Minke whale meat to Japan, and Japan is making illegal purchases of this meat. In response to this, other nations are saying nothing or sending mild letters of protest. Enforcement is non-existent.

This revelation of shipments of whale meat from Iceland and Norway to Japan that began five months ago marks the first time since 1988 that whale meat had been exported.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry officially authorized the trade on February 6^th, 2009 to ship 5.6 tons of Minke whale from Norway. Iceland began shipping Fin and Minke whale meat in 2008.

Tests demonstrated that the whale meat contained high levels of mercury. The Japanese government said the tests on raw whale meat failed and that only cooked whale meat may be sold.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society condemns this illegal trafficking in whale meat and urges conservation minded nations to invoke sanctions against Japan, Iceland and Norway in accordance with international conservation law.

Link: http://www.japantoday.com/category/business/view/japan-approves-resumption-of-whale-meat-imports-from-norway

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THEY SIEZED ALL OF SEA SHEPHERDS VIDEO AN RECORDS IS THE MOST DISGUSTING AND DISTURBING NEWS YET! OMFG!! They are all criminals all them, those who ordered the seizures and for doing it at the drop of a hat for the Japanese and the Japanese who demanded this!!

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Greens Leader Bob Brown says a raid on the Sea Shepherd's anti-whaling ship by the Australian Federal Police was outrageous behaviour.

The Steve Irwin remains in Hobart after it was boarded by AFP officers late yesterday, at the request of Japanese authorities.

The ship's captain Paul Watson says officers took hundreds of hours of video footage and a log book.

Senator Brown says he has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd asking for an explanation.

"It'll be one of the most unpopular decisions the Rudd Government has made so far," he said.

"Australians will be outraged by the appearance that the Australian police are doing the bidding of the Japanese whaling authorities."

The warrant authorized the seizing of "all edited and raw video footage, all edited and raw audio recordings, all still photographs, producer's notes, interview transcripts, production meeting minutes, post production meeting minutes as...

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The Steve Irwin is returning to Australia!

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The difference between Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is that Greenpeace is a protest organization and Sea Shepherd is an interventionist organization. Sea Shepherd intervenes exclusively against illegal activities. In other words we are an anti-poaching organization.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has an unblemished record of never having injured any person and never having had a felony crime conviction. We cannot justify committing a felony in pursuit of our activities. That also would be bad policing.
What has allegedly occurred in the Suzuki and Sato case appears to be the committing of felony trespass and mail theft. These two men have of course not been convicted of these crimes and they may well be acquitted and I hope they are acquitted, but there can be no excuse for Greenpeace to justify the action as legitimate. Greenpeace admits that the warehouse was broken into, and they admit that property in transit was removed.
And this from the same organization that publicly condemns Sea Shepherd tactics as unacceptable. In other words, breaking and entry and theft are justified whereas according to Greenpeace the tossing of rotten butter onto a whaling ship is an act of "eco-terrorism."
Yet there have not been any charges of "eco-terrorism" against Sea Shepherd primarily because there is actually no such crime as "eco-terrorism."
Tossing rotten butter onto a deck of a whaling ship is at the most a misdemeanour IF it were to happen in national waters.
This week the Los Angeles Times ran an article about Suzuki and Sato entitled A bitter face-off in Japan over whaling.
Aside from the fact that the article by John M. Glionna was full of blatant errors of fact, it also misled the public by stating that the "The case has shifted the front lines of the war over Japan's whaling program from the frigid waters off Antarctica, where 100 whales are culled by Japan each winter, to the streets of Tokyo and the court of public opinion."
The front lines of the war over Japan’s whaling program remains in Antarctica where the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin has been disrupting illegal Japanese whaling operations for the last three months. Where Glionna states that 100 whales are culled by Japan, the actual number is 935 Minke plus 50 Fin whales and they are illegally slaughtered - not culled.
This article appears to have been lifted from a Greenpeace media release. Greenpeace has been using their powerful public relations machine to convince the public that defending two men charged with felony crimes for stealing whale meat from the mail represents the vanguard of the movement to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean.
The reality is that it is simply a way for Greenpeace to back out of the costly, ineffective and embarrassing campaigns they have mounted in past years in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is speaking the language that the Japanese whaling industry understands and that language is economic. It all comes down to profit and loss and Sea Shepherd has been negating profits from whaling for four straight years through physical disruption of their illegal operations directly in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.
The front lines of the Whale Wars remain in the Southern Ocean - not in Japan and not in some Tokyo courthouse where the two Greenpeacers are to be tried for trespass and theft.
The Times article stated without bothering to consult with Sea Shepherd that: "The group Sea Shepherd has been accused of tactics such as firing acid, mud, nails and water cannons at the vessels."
In fact, Sea Shepherd has never fired any of these things at the whalers. We don’t have water cannons. It is the Japanese vessels that fire water cannons at the Sea Shepherd crew. Not a single nail, or a speck of mud have ever been fired at a whaling ship. And as for acid, this is merely a spin by the whalers by referring to rotten butter (which stinks) as an acid. It is of course an acid but the spin is meant to conjure up the image of highly corrosive and disfiguring sulfuric acid. Rotten butter is butyric acid, as orange juice is citric acid and milk is lactic acid. The reality is that beer is more acidic than rotten butter.
This article however seeks to perpetuate the misleading spin by both the whalers and by Greenpeace that Sea Shepherd utilizes violent tactics.
We don’t. And we also don’t steal property from the mail.
The L.A. Times article also states:
Japanese officials say they are the target of emotional propaganda.
"Critics say the whale is a special animal to be protected. We'd like to treat it exactly like any other wildlife hunted worldwide, such as deer or kangaroos," (Joji) Morishita said.
"What would the Americans say if India suddenly said they should stop eating beef because the cow is special to their culture?" he asked. "That is what is happening to us."
This attempt to cast the Japanese as victims of cultural chauvinism is bogus and shallow. The whales are indeed special because they are listed as "endangered" and "threatened" and this designation is "special" by law. The killing of wildlife is also not legally allowed within the boundaries of a wildlife park of sanctuary. Morishita displays his very weak moral position by even attempting to make these comparisons.
If India were to demand that Americans stop eating cows because they were endangered and surviving in specially designated cow sanctuaries they would be acting responsibly as conservationists. This has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with international conservation law.
 
Source: Los Angeles Times - DISPATCH FROM TOKYO - A bitter face-off in Japan over whaling By John M. Glionna February 14, 2009

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What is Greenpeace Thinking?
 
The Greenpeace Foundation has been very irresponsible in distracting public attention away from the issue of international illegal whaling by focusing on internal corruption within the Japanese whaling industry.
Of course there is corruption within the whaling industry - it’s a criminal organization.
It would be surprising if there were no corruption. And why does Greenpeace think it is their duty to expose petty theft by whalers from their bosses?
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been battling outlaw whaling operations in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for years. The problem we are combating is simple. Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean is illegal and Sea Shepherd is an anti-poaching organization. The Japanese whaling industry is targeting endangered and threatened whale populations inside an internationally established whale sanctuary in violation of the regulations of the International Whaling Commission and the global moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan is in violation of the Antarctic Treaty and the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITE, The Canberra Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and is operating in contempt of an Australian Federal Court Order prohibiting whaling within the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters.
Instead of focusing on these international laws and regulations, Greenpeace has chosen to investigate internal corruption within the whaling industry.
Towards this end, two Greenpeace members in Japan broke into a private building and removed a package of whale meat that was in shipment from a crewmember on the Nisshin Maru to a specific address in Japan.
According to the L.A. Times, "one of the alleged thieves Junichi Sato said that no matter what, they achieved their goal of bringing the alleged whale meat scandal to public light.
"We achieved that," he said. Then he added softly: "Perhaps we overachieved."
But what did they achieve? The whaling company responded by saying no crime has been committed and that the individual crewmembers are allowed to take some whale meat for their own use. The "scandal" that Greenpeace was trying to bring to light was in fact never a scandal at all.
In response to this action, Japanese authorities charged Toru Suzuki and Junichi Sato with trespass and theft.
And by doing so, Japan handed Greenpeace the perfect excuse to pull out of direct engagement with the Japanese whaling fleet to focus on the defence of the two Japanese activists.
Greenpeace was searching for a way to withdraw after the humiliating expose of their Antarctic campaign of 2006/2007 documented by the BBC in the film Battleship Antarctica.
Suzuki and Sato offered the opportunity for a much less expensive campaign and one that would bring the issue home to Japan itself. Towards this end Greenpeace began to mobilize their significant global membership to engage in a campaign to present these two Japanese Greenpeace members as martyrs for the whales, persecuted by their own government for daring to oppose whaling by their own countrymen.
The only problem was that Suzuki and Sato were not opposing illegal whaling activities by the Japanese whaling fleet. They were trying to expose internal corruption and theft by employees of the whaling company.
They were acting more like self-appointed Pinkerton detectives working for the whaling company than as activists opposing illegal whaling.
The stated goal of Greenpeace was, and is to expose the Japanese whalers as corrupt. The only problem is that the world already knows that Japanese whaling is illegal and the entire whaling operation is corrupt.
What Greenpeace is doing would be the equivalent of the FBI investigating internal corruption within the Mafia. The only person that could possibly benefit from such an investigation would be the Godfather. And whereas the Godfather would reject the FBI findings in favour of policing their own, the whaling bosses have rejected the Greenpeace effort in favour of unity amongst common thieves.
Of course there is corruption within the Japanese whaling industry. The Union that represents the crew of the whaling ships is a Yakusa controlled Union and the Yakusa is the Japanese equivalent of the Mafia.
The question is then what is Greenpeace hoping to gain by exposing criminal activity by whalers against the whaling company. By doing so Greenpeace is distracting from the real issue which is the violation of international conservation law by the Japanese whaling fleet.
Sea Shepherd is more concerned with the theft of whales directly from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. We remain focused on the criminals on the top of the criminal operation. It is simply bad policing to pick off the minions pocketing a few yen at the bottom of the racket. We have our sights set on Joji Morashita and the bosses, not on some poor swab with a flensing knife wading in blood and gore on the deck of the Nisshin Maru. Knock out the big boys and the gangster punks will follow.

cont'd

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Force was met with force yesterday and mighty ships did collide as one side fought for death and our side battled for life.

We have just finished our seventh day in pursuit of the Japanese whaling fleet. They were able to kill five whales. Under normal circumstances three ships would have killed eight to ten whales as day so they should have taken 56 to 70 whales in that time.

We are now very south in the Ross Sea at 77 Degrees South, only about 70 miles north of the Ross Ice Shelf.

We are still on the tail of the Nisshin Maru. 

As far as my crew is concerned, this is the best damn bunch of eco-warriors that it has been my honour to go to sea with. Not a single whiner or coward amongst them. None of them were rattled by the collisions or the assaults from the whalers and not a one of them let the mission down. This is one hell of a team.

I have never gotten very close to the Japanese whalers before. They have always run from us and never before have they dared to kill a whale when we were near by. They tried that yesterday for the first time and although they may do so in the future they have certainly backed down today.

I don’t like seeing whales die. In my eyes it is cold-blooded murder by cowardly back-shooting bullies who in this case are little more than well-financed criminal poachers.

But I was astonished at just how ruthlessly efficient they are at killing and mutilating a whale. They operate in a very robotic fashion. They have spotters above the bridge looking through large binoculars for whales. Once spotted the whale does not have a chance as they run it down forcing it to surface more often to catch its breath. The harpooner then sights the gun, pulls the trigger, and then simply walks casually away as other men rush to grab ropes and a rifleman walks to the bow and begins to shoot a high powered rifle into the helpless struggling animal.

They kill without thought or compassion, without respect and without remorse. That harpooner pulled the trigger with the same lack of passion as a bureaucrat dutifully just doing a job.

As the blood spreads out in a scarlet stain, the whale continued to thrash about in agony. The whale our cameraman filmed took 25 long horrific minutes to die. The killing took place twelve miles from the Steve Irwin. If we had been there when that happened I swear I would have ripped that loathsome harpoon from the deck.

To me the killing of a whale is murder. It is a criminal act. To destroy such a magnificent intelligent highly sensitive gentle creature so painfully for such a long time is simply barbaric.

If this is what the Japanese call their culture than all I can say is to hell with this aspect of Japanese culture. I am fed up with the cultural justification for the infliction of suffering and death. What they call culture, I call a willful ignorant arrogance and it has no place on this planet. People who eat whale flesh are akin to cannibals to me and those Japanese people who still eat whale meat are the new Eta class – dirty and ignorant people.

Thankfully only a small percentage of Japanese people continue to eat whale meat. Enough to serve as a profitable market, but it still remains a relatively small group and this group is bringing dishonour and shame onto all Japanese citizens by continuing to wallow in the steaming blood, gore, and entrails of suffering dolphins and whales.

But the day ended positively for all of us down here not far from the Ross Ice Shelf in southeastern corner of the Ross Sea.

We stood guard, and the killers could not get in the back door to deliver any corpses. Because they knew they could not make that delivery the harpoons were not fired today.

As I saw four whales swim by close to that massive slaughterhouse, I smiled knowing that those four whales, at least, would not die this season, as we chased their black hearted killers along, nipping at their heels and keeping them running.   

It has been a good day.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009 

Captain's Blog

February 7, 2009

On the Steve Irwin

The Ross Sea

Today was a Good Day to be a Shepherd in the Ross Sea

The great American poet Walt Whitman once wrote:

"Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only

Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go

And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all".

We have indeed gone where no mariner has every gone before. We have fought a battle with an entire whaling fleet and forced them to back down. There were four of them and one of us. Three were faster with superior maneuverability and the fourth was nine times our size

This was the kind of day Walt Whitman had in mind when he wrote those words. For here we are in the deep water. My crew is with me and I’m with them and we have risked our ship, ourselves, and all.

It’s been more than 24 hours since our last confrontation with the Japanese whalers and they have not killed a whale since. We have once again silenced the harpoons.

They decided to test our resolve when they moved in yesterday to offload two dead whales. Their only previous experience doing this with any opposition was when Greenpeace attempted to block the slipway a few years ago. As they moved in to intimidate the activists, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza pulled away to avoid the harpoon boats.

I assume they expected us to do the same and they were shocked when we stood our ground and did not surrender an inch to them. It was more than they bargained for and as a result they have stood down and covered up their harpoons. Today was another victory for the whales.

As the Japanese government bemoans their losses and hysterically shoots ridiculous and thoughtless rhetoric from the hip, we see only one thing – a body of a truly magnificent creature being hoisted up an anus-like ramp in the stern of a floating slaughterhouse as its hot blood pours down into the cold sea.

Seeing that dead whale being treated so disrespectfully as just a piece of meat made me angry and forced me to restrain my passion to lash out in vengeance. 

With my hands on the wheel of the Steve Irwin, I fought to keep the ship steady in the wake of the factory ship and the two harpoon boats amidst a barrage of attacks from a sonic blaster, water cannons, and hurtled missiles. As I watched the that body being dragged so ignobly into that monstrous ship I thought of the words of a poem I wrote two years ago that I called The Killer Angels.

How much more of the world's hottest blood must be poured into the sea,

Pardon me for being so gentle with such vicious beasts as these,

I want to burst with my anger upon them, searing forever their sight,

And drive them like the cowards they are whimpering into the night,

To restore the seas to the gentle whales leaving them free to roam,

To never again see the oceans whipped into a bloody foam,

What a piece of work is man, a self proclaimed angel divine,

Conceited naked ignorant ape, a legend in their own mind,

If they be angels then killer angels is what they really are,

And if I could, I would drive them from the

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009 

A Plea to Boycott

Buy Only Whale Safe Clothing, Toys and goods in Great Britain.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is calling for a boycott in the United Kingdom of the following merchants in the campaign to boycott all Icelandic products to protect the whales

A Company owned by Icelandic Banks called Bauger owns 100% of the following retail chains

Karen Millen and French Connection (clothing retailers)

Don’t wear clothing that supports the slaughter of endangered whales.

Iceland Frozen Seafoods.

Boycotting this chain is a natural of course

Hamleys (Large Toy Retailer)

Children love whales and children would not want to have a toy made by a company that supports the killing of whales.

The House of Fraser (Department Store)

Not Scottish but 100% Icelandic and patronizing this chain is supporting Iceland’s program to slaughter Fin and Minke whales.

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009 

Whale Wars Continues...

The Whale War Continues as Japan Rejects Appeasement Offer

The world needs to get serious about protecting the whales.
Japan has rejected the ridiculously generous compromise offered by the United States that would have legalized North Pacific whaling by Japan in return for a gradual 20% per year decrease in the whales killed in the Southern Ocean.
This Neville Chamberlain type appeasement approach by the United States, Australia and other so called anti-whaling nations was made out of fear that Japan will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and would continue whaling outside the regulations of the IWC.
Of course, the Japanese whaling fleet is already slaughtering endangered whales in violation of the IWC regulations, CITES and the Antarctic Treaty.
Despite the generosity of the offer, Japan has turned it down. Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Shigeru Ishiba said: "We cannot accept a proposal that discontinues our research hunting."
The position of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is that we are glad that Japan has turned down this proposal. Sea Shepherd is opposed to the slaughter of whales anywhere by anyone.
"We would not support a proposal that calls for a reduction in murder in Darfur in exchange for the legalized murder of an agreed upon segment of the population and we will not accept any proposal that sanctions the murder of any number of whales." Said Captain Paul Watson.
Greenpeace International said in a statement from Amsterdam that whaling should cease in the IWC's Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. "But if a phase-out was implemented directly after the IWC meeting in Madeira this coming June and was properly enforced and monitored, then it would be a big step towards whale conservation, as well as the protection of pristine Antarctic waters."
Sea Shepherd differs from Greenpeace in not accepting any phase-out or gradual reduction or the legalization of whaling elsewhere in return.
"We don’t believe in compromising with poachers," Said Sea Shepherd U.K. director Steve Roest. "We believe that the laws that we have now should be enforced. The Japanese poaching of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is a criminal activity."
The IWC proposal also, if it had been accepted by Japan would have weakened the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary by extending protection for the whales for five more years only. Of course the Sanctuary has not been much of a Sanctuary since it was declared two decades ago.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society wants this proposal of appeasement to be scrapped and for Australia and other nations to initiate legal actions against Japan to stop their criminal activities in the Southern Ocean.
Sea Shepherd is unconcerned about Japanese threats to withdraw from the IWC. "We hope they do withdraw," Said Captain Paul Watson. "The annual meeting of the IWC is nothing more than a party for a bunch of bureaucratic wankers, most of whom have never seen a whale in their life. Let Japan withdraw and drop the charade, this ridiculous pretense that they are engaged in legitimate research. We would welcome the chance to challenge them even more aggressively for the renegade whalers that they are. I’m fed up with them pissing on us and telling us it’s raining as everyone responds by opening their umbrella. It’s time to kick them in their criminal ass."
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has shut down illegal Japanese whaling operations in the Southern Ocean for the fourth straight day. Presently the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin is chasing the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru and three harpooner hunter killer boats across the Ross Sea.
Captain Paul Watson and his crew will not tolerate or allow a whale to be killed as long as the fleet is in sight and the Nisshin Maru is unable to outrun the Steve Irwin.

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009 

An Update From Captain Paul Watson

Sea Shepherd Update
Japanese Whalers Playing Dangerous Games in the Ross Sea
 
At 0500 Hours on February 4th, the three harpoon vessels of the Japanese whaling fleet literally attacked the Steve Irwin.
The Yushin Maru #2 has rejoined the fleet after leaving the area on December 20th with propeller damage.
All three harpoon ships moved in to flank the Steve Irwin as the Sea Shepherd ship continued to chase the factory ship Nisshin Maru.
The Yushin Maru #2 initiated the attack by cutting dangerously close across the bow of the Steve Irwin from port to starboard in seas that were far from calm.
The other two harpoon vessels Yushin Maru #1 and Yushin Maru #3 made the same dangerous maneuvers
The movements of the Japanese vessels are especially dangerous in the choppy seas and dense fog conditions.
"It has given us some very dramatic footage for the next season of Whale Wars," said Captain Paul Watson, "but if their intention was to intimidate us, it did not work. When it comes to playing chicken on the high seas, we have much more experience than the whalers."
Today is day four of the Steve Irwin’s pursuit of the Japanese whaling fleet and four days in which not a single whale has been killed.
"The crew is feeling very good, very happy and we are all enthusiastic about keeping the whales safe for as long as we can." Said Amber Paarman of South Africa.
The whaling fleet is crisscrossing the Ross Sea erratically. The whalers appear to becoming increasingly frustrated and angry that Sea Shepherd has shut down their whaling operations.

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Tuesday, February 03, 2009 

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

In Pursuit of Cowards on a Hostile Sea
 
For all of their macho bravado as big tough whaling men and their connections with the thuggish Yakuza gangs, the whalers of the Japanese fleet are like all bullies, basically cowards.
Once again we have intercepted the whaling fleet and once again they are running. They were engaged in whaling operations when we approached them. Upon sighting us they stopped whaling and began running.
It’s a strange sight at the moment. The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin ploughing full speed through heavy seas taking white water over the bow, drenching our small boat crew with cold showers every few minutes as they work to make the fast inflatables ready for deployment. The winds are blowing at forty knots and the sea is full of ice growlers with large icebergs scattered all around us.
Six miles before our bow, the Japanese whaling factory ship the Nisshin Maru, the ship we call the Cetacean Death Star is fleeing at full speed before us. Fleeing alongside her is one of the Japanese harpoon vessels. Behind us, at a distance of nine miles the other harpoon vessel is following us.
The pursuit is strung out for fifteen miles across the top of the Ross Sea some 2100 nautical miles Southwest of Hobart, Tasmania.
The Steve Irwin is gaining a half a knot on the Nisshin Maru every hour and it may take 12 hours to close the gap but we have them in our sights visually and the crew is confident that we can catch them.
The important thing is we caught them whaling and forced them to shut down the hunt in order to flee from us.
The hunters are now the hunted and running scared. We have plenty of fuel to keep chasing them and every day we keep them running is a day they can’t kill any whales.
They had a week to kill whales before we caught them on December 20th, 2008 and that chase lasted until January 7th, 2009 before the Steve Irwin was forced to return to Tasmania to refuel. This gave the whalers three weeks to hunt whales although short one harpoon vessel. Now on the first day of February 2009, we have them on the run again. We know they won’t be killing any whales today and every day that now follows that they don’t kill a whale will be a victory.
Once again we are going to make sure they do not kill their quota and once again we are going to cost these criminals, millions of dollars in lost illicit profits.
The wind may be splattering stinging freezing salt water into our faces but the crew of the Steve Irwin are very happy today. They are once again doing what we come down to these remote and ferociously hostile waters to do - saving whales.
As the ships raced through the heavy swells, I saw three spouts blowing to the leeward side of us at only a quarter of a mile. Three whales surfaced and swam alongside us, as their killers fled before us.
That sight alone has made my day.
 
Captain Paul Watson

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 

A Poem - Seraph of the Forests

The Seraph of the Forests

Seraph rising in the Old Growth Forest, Beetles, bats, tree frogs raising the chorus, Roused from a deep slumber centuries old, Grey eyes opened, shivering in the cold..
At long last the day had finally arrived, After all these centuries he had survived, His hand gripped the heavy sword by his side, Alive once again he joyfully cried.
He could feel the tremors of pain through the ground, The forest invaded by alien sounds, A smile broke upon his warming lips, Sensation began in his fingertips.
He heard and felt, but could not move nor see, His body imprisoned within a tree, For over three thousands years he had slept, Awakening as the trees round him wept.
The curse was foreseen by ancient sages, He was entombed by skilled forest mages, As his body waited his mind did travel, Learning, finding riddles to unravel.
Preparing, waiting, for the curse of man, Closer, closer came the stench, across the land, The hard ground shook from the massive machines.
Animals fled before merciless fiends.
He listened, and wondered what to expect, He felt the muscles grow tense in his neck, The trees behind him were softly calling, Trees before him were crashing and falling.
The men scurried forward with saws and chains, Leaving the sad land behind scarred with stains, They stared in awe at the tallest of all, Eager, so eager, to see the giant fall.
The chainsaw bit deep into wooded flesh, Sawdust spattered like blood, rust red, and fresh, The mighty trunk split open with a roar, Smashing the logger to the forest floor,
Unleashed, the Seraph’s sword sang in the air, Loggers in abject fear could only stare, Falling like reeds before the deadly scythe, Horrified eyes staring blank at the sky.
The sword split open the spoiled soil,
The land began to buckle and boil,
Machines tumbled into the dark abyss,
Round his giant feet rose a reddish mist.
His body glowed bright with an amber flame, Souls rose from the dirt in ignoble shame, Pointing his sword he ordered them to go, Their bodies left for the seedlings to grow.
He graciously bowed towards the giants,
He, the guardian, and they his clients,
"Who are these savage creatures?" he did ask.
"They’re a contradiction behind a mask."
"Some destroy and a few others defend,
Gentle ones who come in peace we befriend"
The Seraph slowly sheathed his golden sword, "I serve the children of my loving Lord."
"I shall spare your good friends and smite thy foes, Their great machines will shatter from my blows, For all who disrespect the trees shall die, Tooth for a leaf and for a limb, an eye."
"Do these frail primates not recognize you?
Amongst their numbers, the wise are so few, In your lofty branches they once did play.
And now they return to plunder and slay."
You gave them life, they repay you with death, They scorch the Earth until nothing is left, I am the sword, the force, the word, the law, Nature’s righteous vengeance in tooth and claw.
Once more I stand before the garden gate, The shield of life against forces of hate, The line of truth has been drawn in the sand, Thus must it end, the tyranny of man.
From the ancient forests of Tasmania,
To the wooded hills of Romania,
The trees rejoice with the revelation,
Unleashing the Seraph of salvation.
"Man’s empire is now at a shameful end,
With my sword the forests I now defend,
Evolve with Nature’s will and law or die, For the forests are now safe in my eye."
 
- Captain Paul Watson
January 28th, 2009

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...thankz Claudie, i just came to put it here az well, brilliant huh hehe 

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Saturday, January 24, 2009 

A Poem - The Endless Quest

The Endless Quest
By Captain Paul Watson

Adieu my darling, the whales of the sea are dying and we know why, Slaughtered by pirates, we must follow their cry, The engine hums, turns, moves slow, so far to go, The cry of "T’har she blows" erupts, as hot blood from gaping wounds do flow.
The cold sea is so embarrassed for us, all certainties disappear, We need only empty our sad hearts of fear, We voyage so far, so very far from land, To a so very lonely place, very lonely, where we make our stand.
A ship of heroes? Or a wise ship of fools? What is wrong? What is right?
People of peace forced into a complex fight, In a crazy charge against insanity, We are such a small insignificant fraction of humanity.
So many self righteous cynics, so much hatred, selfishness and greed , For humanity to grow, the world must bleed, We can feel the anger, the fear and the hate, Staring into the cold eyes of bureaucratic minions of the State.
The harpoons thunder, pierce, and explode in a fiery vicious rape, Pantheistic shields repelling waves of hate, Her dying screams echo darkly inside my mind, Gasping, thrashing, in agonized horror at the cruelty of mankind.
Into this wild sea of slaughter we voyage, sailing close hauled with the law, Jagged open wounds torn, ragged, red and raw, Humanity destroying life in God’s name, Cowards coveting blood money, searching for other species to blame.
Humanity has lost the desire to endure a selfless quest, In serving this living Earth there is no rest, Enduring ridicule and the ignorant jests, Humankind has long forgotten that we remain temporary guests.
The magical nature of this voyage is shrouded in mystery, The magic can be glimpsed in our history, Upon this great black ship, we all are blessed, Unless and except those whose treacherous natures remain unconfessed.
Tragedy has struck those few who have lied, sabotaged and betrayed, Mediocrity followed those who have strayed,
Powers sprung forth from an unfathomable source, We keep to our course guided by the light of this benevolent force.
Over the dark shroud of the sea we move, wedded to the tidal flood, The rising moon provokes the salt in our blood, Songs of whales vibrate the rhythm in our souls, World changing songs transcending time, lapping on uncaring coral shoals.
Be’twixt the dimensions of reality defined by human thought, Nature’s world that humanity has long fought, Imprisoned in our encyclopedia, Replaced by the trivial hysteria of modern media.
Hypnotized by charismatic whores peddling utopian dreams, Bread and media circuses masking schemes, Truth is distorted to what they want to hear, Manipulating mass movements to govern by false hope and by fear.
Willing the wind, waves, weather and currents to carry out her commands, The spirits of the victims scream their demands, Harnessing the strength of her intrepid knights, To sally forth in forest, desert, plain and sea in a thousand fights.
Ahead lies violent death, inspired by the coal black heart of culture, A ship that laps steaming blood like a vulture, Three little killers with deadly little dicks, Blowing holes in the holy mind of the sea for profit and for kicks.
Hominid cockroaches scurry evilly over mutilated whales, Nations weigh decisions on corrupted scales, Talk, the excuse for doing nothing at all, Diplomacy, the justification for the Japanese to stall.
The resolute spirit of the samurai has long been laid to rest, Seppaku, a mere step upon Sedna’s breast, Seaman swallowed by a cold blooded kraken, A sacrifice, that the consciousness of Moana may awaken..
The albatross guides this fair black ship protected by a karmic shroud, Southward under the land of the long white cloud, Onward to the edge of the far Southern Sea, As the whales flee from the deadly harpoons, the killers before us flee..
 
- Captain Paul Watson
- January 23, 2009

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The only difference between the criminal activities of the Japanese whaling and elephant and rhino poachers is that the whalers have hired a few public relations firms and they are far more wealthy that Somali poachers.
I am confident that we are once again going to cost the Japanese whaling fleet a great deal of money this season, just as we did for the two previous years. I am confident that they will not achieve their kill quota and I am also confident that if we persist without retreat, we will end this crime against nature and humanity and we will ensure that the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary becomes a sanctuary in practise and not just name.
Let's hope that the Japanese whalers do not fire Glen Inwood. We like him exactly where he is with his shoot a media release from the hip without thinking approach. We have been greatly entertained by his comical outbursts of indignation against compassionate people wanting to defend life from barbaric slaughter. It was also entertaining to see him skulk around the hotel where the International Whaling Commission met in Santiago, Chile last June when he ordered a surveillance on 15 year Skye Bortelli of Australian Teens Against Whaling because she was a suspected terrorist. He also tried to have Chilean authorities ban me from entry to the country, another failure to stick in his portfolio of failures.
Thanks to Glen Inwood, we are making some pretty good progress on the public relations front.
Below is a letter that recently appeared in the West Australian newspaper.
 
The West Australian, opinion section: http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=93&C
Whale poachers flout illegal activities
14th January 2009, 10:00 WST
RE: Japan wants Australia to reject whaling protesters' port calls
According to Glenn Inwood, the New Zealand-based spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, Australia is guilty of breaching its "international obligations" to support bogus "science" by allowing the "criminal" anti-whaling vessel Steve Irwin to use its ports after the boat's high-seas collision with a Japanese ship recently.
This accusation is due to our government's impotent pacifism and subservience to Japan's illegal whaling operations.
Passive consent over the years is giving these perpetrators of crime a de facto legality and audacity.
Glenn Inwood is being paid handsomely, no doubt, to condemn Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin crew, the lonely law enforcers in the Southern Ocean.
Despite strong policies and promises, Japan remains all powerful and its whale poachers can safely flout their illegal activities right under our noses.
V. ORTEGA
HEIDELBERG HEIGHTS, VIC

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Thursday, January 15, 2009 

Commentary

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Thursday, January 15, 2009 

A Poem From Captain Paul Watson

The Crew Envisioned In the Eye of My Whale
By Captain Paul Watson

What kind of men and women are on this crew?
Who are these rare and caring and fearless few?
Charging forth for the whales on the deep dark blue.
Before silent eyes, inspiration breaches, Ripples of life lap upon the world’s beaches, Blessed are all the students the whale teaches.
Knowledge is a shape rising from the Oceans, Leviathan’s eye reveals our emotions, Whale tears - the most potent of salty potions.
That solitary eye into my eye peered.
There the image of all my sins lay mirrored.
My destiny was everything that I feared.
Strange whale magic worked upon my fate that day, A breaching transcendence was put into play, Placed on a straight path from which I could not stray.
Melville wrote we are enveloped in whale lines, Truth from the eye of the whale forever shines, For upon my soul karma forever dines.
Death had caught me up in a swift sudden turn, Silent, subtle, perils of life I did learn, As God upon an ocean of blood did churn.
We cannot seduce the enemies we fear,
We defeat the enemy with a mirror,
Eye to eye, boldly defending flank and rear.
Pursuit, intervention, skirmish, deception.
Prepared with changing tactics of reception, No compromise, no retreat, or exception.
Victory is obtained by the strength of will, Resolve and persistence are the daily drill, Wearing the enemy down before the kill.
Our resolve gives us invincibility,
We possess the strength and the ability, Our advantage is their vincibility.
The fiery blue ice can be friend or foe, Patience, we take it easy, we take it slow, We feel our way through the treacherous ice floe.
Onward, ever onward, we voyage for weeks, The freezing salt lashing and kissing our cheeks The red paint of our hull stains the ice in streaks.
Grinding, crashing, smashing, rolling slabs of ice, Every turn of the wheel is like rolling dice, With cold dark death we flirt, we dance and entice.
This voyage is merely another chapter,
In a book of decades fighting disaster,
And to these events the whale was the master.
Guiding and protecting in every campaign, Avoiding death, injury, prison and pain, Cleansing the living sea of the human stain.
There is magic here beyond comprehension, That does remove both fear and apprehension, There is no burden of worry or tension.
Ahab’s sad fate was to personify hate,
To him nature was his, to rape and to take, In loving nature, we eradicate hate.
Karmic law is a very fine line to walk,
Guided by real emotions and not by talk, Sensitive to each karmic tremor and shock.
Balancing actions on a delicate scale,
Intuition is the guide that must not fail, Integrity must be the most blessed grail.
Saints for nature are most exceedingly rare, Satanic Pan is unleashed as Christians stare, Virtues of humanity are quite unfair.
We who have seen truth in the eyes of a whale, Wear a rare veil of armour that cannot fail.
Our truth, our cross, is the whale’s powerful tail.
So difficult to explain in words and verse, This odyssey that has been blessing and curse, Within this new paradigm we are the first.
In all of human history, no one has dared, To risk all for those whose world we have shared, History will record that we truly cared.
That great whale who spoke to me so long ago, In whose body the hottest of blood did flow, He envisioned the long path that we would go.
Oh Leviathan, hallowed be thy name,
Thy will shall be done.

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Greenpeace is doing nothing active at sea to stop the murder of these amazing creatures. Thank you Sea Sherperd keep up the excellent work.

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 [ accepted]

...please use this news story for all it's worth, to stop the killing of whales, and now humans...

...when you post, EMPHASIZE that if the whalers had not been down there killing, then that person would be alive & well and home with his family today... so this is effective in proving the point that whaling should be stopped because it not only saves whales, but also is effective to those who don't understand that all life is valuable, and those who only think about themselves, or only about humans...if they are thinking oh, its only whales being killed, stuff em, well, now they can be shown that whaling kills humans as well...

...another point...

...after the whale wars tv show, showed some mishaps with the zodiac, etc, there are some detractors out there, facebook, yahoo, etc who go on line claiming SSCS is inept or not good at sailing and SSCS shouldn't be out on the sea...Well, USE THIS to show those people that it's the Japanese WHALERS that are incompetent, not SSCS...SSCS has never lost anyone, in 30 years! ...it's the whalers whose negligence at sea and maritime incompetence that has now killed people...

...also,

...this is not the 1st time that the Japanese actions have killed a man...this is the second time that a man has been killed by the Japanese whaling fleet by their being in the waters!

...previously, due to inexperience by the Japanese whalers, and/or negligence, the Japanese whalers detonated an explosion on their own ship (!) by inappropriate handling of explosives that the Japanese whalers were harboring, used to explode inside the bodies of whales when they are harpooned, they then caught their own ship on fire, caused the death of one of their own crew members while at sail on the ocean...the Japanese whaling fleet, captain and crew, also managed to cripple one of their vessels, almost cause an environmental disaster, listing, and threatening to leak thousands of gallons of fuel oil into the territorial waters of New Zealand...

...the Japanese whalers are not in their own waters...the Japanese have poisoned most of the whales that were in the vicinity of Japan, and they are now sailing thousands of miles out of their own Japanese waters and entering Australian Economic Exclusion Zone waters and poaching whales out of a protected Whale Sanctuary in violation of Australian Federal Law handed down by judges in Federal Court as well as violating the UN World Charter...if they had stayed home, this Japanese whaler crew member would still be alive...by venturing out, and continuing to illegally conduct whale poaching in treacherous waters, Japan has now killed another one of their own people...

...letz keep the good Japanese people free of mercury poisoning from eating the contaminated meat brought back by this fleet, and letz help keep the Japanese whalers from killing anymore of their own people by helping to stop whaling...if the fleet is kept tethered in Japan, and the ICR is stopped from sending the Japanese crew members out into treacherous seas, then the whalers actions would not have resulted in yet another man's presumed death, and this Japanese man would instead be safe and happy at home with his family instead...

...time to put a stop to whaling and keep their ships at home...

...so you can now explain all of this to effectively quell ALL of those counter-arguments by those who go around promoting whale killing...

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009 

From Captain Paul Watson

The Death of a Whaler

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

I never met Hajime Shirasaki. I'm sure that if I had met him, we would not have agreed on much. He was a whaler and I detest whalers and I'm sure he detested us for our efforts to protect his victims.

But Hajime Shirasaki was also a human being with a family and friends who will miss him. And for that we sympathize with his family for their loss.

Hajime died yesterday. His body was claimed by the Great Southern Ocean and chances are it will not be recovered. To fall off a ship in these waters in the night means death and every sailor knows it. The water temperature is zero degrees Celsius. Death comes quick in these seas. Still, to watch your ship sail on as you lay helpless and freezing in its wake is a terrifying experience.

Hajime was a young man of 30. Why he decided to join the crew of a whaling ship is unknown to us but it was a decision that he made.

Apparently Hajime, an engine room oiler on the Kyosin Maru No. 2 a scouting ship for the Japanese whaling fleet, went outside at night by himself dressed only in coveralls. He never came back inside.

There are three possibilities. He accidently fell overboard. He was pushed or he committed suicide. We will probably never know. What we do know is that he is the third fatality suffered by the Japanese whaling fleet since 2007.

A crewmember of the Nisshin Maru died in a fire in January 2007 and a second crewmember on the Nisshin Maru died in the summer of 2007 in an industrial accident onboard the factory ship. He was crushed in the conveyor that loaded the whale meat into the hold.

"The Japanese whaling industry has been screaming about Sea Shepherd being a threat to safety at sea." Said Captain Paul Watson. "Yet in the five voyages that Sea Shepherd has made to oppose illegal Japanese whaling, not a single Japanese whaler has been injured and Sea Shepherd has not had any crew injured. We have an unblemished safety record. It appears to me that the whaling industry should improve their safety measures instead of scape-goating us for their lack of responsibility. The truth is that Sea Shepherd does not pose a threat to the crew on the whaling vessels. The whaling industry kills whales and whalers. It is an industry of death."

The crew of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Steve Irwin send their condolences to the family of Hajime Shirasaki. His death is a tragedy. And the slaughter of the whales is also a great tragedy. How many more whales and humans have to die before Japan abolishes this brutal and barbaric annual slaughter of the whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary?

Captain Paul Watson - January 6, 2009

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The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Steve Irwin has joined the search for missing Japanese seaman Hajime Shiraskai 30. Shirasaki fell off the Kyoshin Maru No. 2 and is believed lost at sea.

The Steve Irwin is presently with the Japanese whaling fleet at the position of 62 Degrees 17 Minutes South and 144 Degrees 50 Minutes West. This is 1800 miles Southeast of Dunedin, New Zealand and 2600 miles Southeast of Hobart, Australia.

Captain Paul Watson informed the fleet that the Sea Shepherd crew had no intention of harassing the whaling vessels while they are engaged in a search for the missing crewman's body. Captain Watson offered the Steve Irwin, two boat crews and a helicopter to assist in the search.

The Yushin Maru No 3 responded and declined Sea Shepherd's offer of assistance saying that they would not accept help from an "eco-terrorist organization."

Captain Watson answered that the Sea Shepherd crew would assist in the search nonetheless and would not interfere with the whalers while engaged in the search mission.

The Steve Irwin has deployed two boat crews and a helicopter to search the area for the body of the missing seaman.

The Steve Irwin has over extended it's time to join in this search and will have to cut off and begin to return to port within 12 hours

Hobart is 10 days away and Dunedin is 7 days away. The Steve Irwin is planning on heading back to Hobart in Tasmania.

 [ accepted]

Monday, January 05, 2009

A Poem

The Call of the Great Southern Ocean

By Captain Paul Watson

Adrift upon the endless grey rollers of eternity, Perpetual mists sputtering towards the elusive sun, A black flower afloat on the dark currents of desire, Eastward, ever eastward, a circling to infinity, Where Atlantic greybeards, Cape rollers and Pacific swells run, Icicles hang from crystal cliffs, reflecting the sun's fire.

A great wheel of ocean unfettered by rock, sand, reef or shore, Ebony brine studded with lethal gems of sweet elements, Floating jagged rocks of life threatening the most cruel demise, Mountains of ice tumble into slivered growlers with a roar, Our steel hull vulnerable as silk, groans and buckles with dents, Sailors here are at grace with the cold sea, and foolishly wise,

Frigid breathing stirs the dark waters with sensual motion, Hypnotic and haunting, captivating and so seductive, Lulled into the endless sleep that spawns a thousand hellish dreams, Songs of whales in harmony with the music of the ocean, Hosts of playful penguins dancing rituals reproductive, Leviathan fleeing in terror from humanity's schemes.

Like lost weary wraiths we move in the shadow of nature's law, Pursuing cruel nightmares endlessly upon this dismal flood, We have been so long, so many years, upon this sand and tide, Cursed to defend the victims from humanity's most evil flaw, Protecting the Southern Ocean's rarest and hottest of blood, Proud traitors to our species, champions of the other side.

In the process we have reaped a great treasure of immense wealth, Empathy with the forces of life from the dark of the deep, An awareness, a knowledge, the rare light of nature divine, A karmic shield on this epic quest to protect life and health, Weep not a tear for ourselves but for the slain whales we do weep, Death and destruction through which delirious dreams of desire shine.

This circle of life winds the machinery of Earth like a clock.

Clockwise, always clockwise through currents, tide, wind, storm and motion, The continent gives continued birth to vast water mountains, Miles thick of ancient ice crushing primordial hard rock, Feeding icebergs by the thousands to the Great Southern Ocean, Steady streams flow under, over, and gush forth in frigid fountains,

On the threshold of the East we stand between three continents, Southern snow blink portends the crush of the icy dust of death, The yielding veil of misty dewed satin slowly draws wide, There lies Lucifer's bloody fleet, blood pouring from stinking vents, Mutilating Cetus's body leaving the ocean bereft, Of Mind and Soul of the Great Southern Ocean's eternal tide.

Before us stands the arrogant foul spectre of human hatred, Crawling with parasitic insects in copied human form, Craven flashing knives, horrific harpoons and lethal lances, Robotic men without honour desecrating the sacred, Spilling tons of scarlet life into the raging karmic storm.

Students of the rules of the samurai schools. They need to win.

Guided by great Leviathan's solemn song, we must prevail.

We side with the Ocean against the rules of humanity, Hurling ourselves between harpoon cannon and escaping fin, Into that chaos of blood, gore, and steel we valiantly sail, Shields prepared for the onslaught of cultural insanity.

No good deed goes unpunished and the verdict will soon be in, Blasphemy against the will of the arrogant majority, That is our crime as illustrious traitors to our species, We stand on this frozen sea for the Piked, Humpback, and the Fin, Unrepentant knights of the benevolent minority, Fighting stinking scupper trash, dripping in blood, gore and faeces.

And though the world be allied against us in common antipathy, We will chase these killers to the Eastern gates of this frozen hell.

Holding the standard of the great whales in glorious defiance, Guided by the poetic instincts of love and empathy, For at the closing of the day and the ringing of the bell, We are defined forever by who we stand with in alliance.

This endlessly rocking ancient cradle from which life is born, Calls for her children to defend the treasures in her rich womb, Into her deep liquid darkness we place our most loving trust, Defending this great Southern realm from which life is cruelly torn, The sanctuary must be a paradise and not a tomb, And so we fight to abate the sin of lethal human lust.

Upon the great shroud of the Southern Ocean we boldly sail, Through gauntlets of crystalline knives, jagged glass mines, drifting floes, Tracking Luciferian killers by their silvery wake, The lives of hundreds of innocent whales forfeit should we fail, Our mission is to intercept, harass, and increase their woes, Reducing their illicit foul profits and the lives they take.

Miles slip away like dried leaves twirling in an Autumn gale, Deeper into the white shroud of darkness we slowly descend, Patiently we advance South around the crumbling icy wall, Our quest almost complete as we close in on that loathsome grail, At the bottom of the world we fight without support or friend, We cannot ignore or dismiss Leviathan's lonely call.

 [ accepted]

A crew member of Japan's controversial whale-hunting fleet was missing and presumed dead Monday after he apparently fell overboard in freezing Antarctic waters south of New Zealand, officials said.

Japan's coast guard requested New Zealand's help after the whaling vessel Kyoshin Maru No. 2 reported that a 30-year-old Japanese national had fallen overboard, according to Mike Roberts of New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Center.

However, authorities decided that no boats or planes could reach the remote waters several thousand miles (kilometers) south of New Zealand in time to save the sailor, who had by then been missing for at least six hours. Japanese vessels are continuing their search.

"After speaking to the master of the vessel, we were able to establish the missing man was only wearing overalls when he went into the water," Roberts said.

The water temperature was about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), he said. "Maximum survival time in those conditions is an hour."

The missing sailor was identified as Hajime Shirasaki, 30, who worked as an oiler in the ship's engine room, said Shigeki Takaya, a Fisheries Agency spokesman for whaling.

Whale hunts have been temporarily suspended.

If confirmed, Shirasaki's death would be the second fatality in Japan's whaling fleet in two years. In 2007, a sailor died in a fire aboard a whale processing factory ship in New Zealand's Ross Sea.

The six-vessel Japanese fleet plans to harvest up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales this year under International Whaling Commission rules, as long as the mammals are killed for research and not commercial purposes.

Opponents say the research expeditions are simply a cover for commercial whaling, which was banned in 1986.

Last month, the whaling fleet came under attack by the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd. Activists lobbed 25 bottles of rotten butter at the fleet in protest of the whale harvest but denied Japanese assertions that their boat, the Steve Irwin, rammed a Japanese ship.

New Zealand authorities said there were no activist boats or any other non-whaling ships in the area Monday.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/05/asia/AS-Antarctica-Whaling.php 

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 [ accepted]

Tuesday, January 06, 2009 

A Poem

The Call of the Great Southern Ocean

By Captain Paul Watson

Adrift upon the endless grey rollers of eternity, Perpetual mists sputtering towards the elusive sun, A black flower afloat on the dark currents of desire, Eastward, ever eastward, a circling to infinity, Where Atlantic greybeards, Cape rollers and Pacific swells run, Icicles hang from crystal cliffs, reflecting the sun's fire.

A great wheel of ocean unfettered by rock, sand, reef or shore, Ebony brine studded with lethal gems of sweet elements, Floating jagged rocks of life threatening the most cruel demise, Mountains of ice tumble into slivered growlers with a roar, Our steel hull vulnerable as silk, groans and buckles with dents, Sailors here are at grace with the cold sea, and foolishly wise,

Frigid breathing stirs the dark waters with sensual motion, Hypnotic and haunting, captivating and so seductive, Lulled into the endless sleep that spawns a thousand hellish dreams, Songs of whales in harmony with the music of the ocean, Hosts of playful penguins dancing rituals reproductive, Leviathan fleeing in terror from humanity's schemes.

Like lost weary wraiths we move in the shadow of nature's law, Pursuing cruel nightmares endlessly upon this dismal flood, We have been so long, so many years, upon this sand and tide, Cursed to defend the victims from humanity's most evil flaw, Protecting the Southern Ocean's rarest and hottest of blood, Proud traitors to our species, champions of the other side.

In the process we have reaped a great treasure of immense wealth, Empathy with the forces of life from the dark of the deep, An awareness, a knowledge, the rare light of nature divine, A karmic shield on this epic quest to protect life and health, Weep not a tear for ourselves but for the slain whales we do weep, Death and destruction through which delirious dreams of desire shine.

This circle of life winds the machinery of Earth like a clock.

Clockwise, always clockwise through currents, tide, wind, storm and motion, The continent gives continued birth to vast water mountains, Miles thick of ancient ice crushing primordial hard rock, Feeding icebergs by the thousands to the Great Southern Ocean, Steady streams flow under, over, and gush forth in frigid fountains,

On the threshold of the East we stand between three continents, Southern snow blink portends the crush of the icy dust of death, The yielding veil of misty dewed satin slowly draws wide, There lies Lucifer's bloody fleet, blood pouring from stinking vents, Mutilating Cetus's body leaving the ocean bereft, Of Mind and Soul of the Great Southern Ocean's eternal tide.

Before us stands the arrogant foul spectre of human hatred, Crawling with parasitic insects in copied human form, Craven flashing knives, horrific harpoons and lethal lances, Robotic men without honour desecrating the sacred, Spilling tons of scarlet life into the raging karmic storm.

Students of the rules of the samurai schools. They need to win.

Guided by great Leviathan's solemn song, we must prevail.

We side with the Ocean against the rules of humanity, Hurling ourselves between harpoon cannon and escaping fin, Into that chaos of blood, gore, and steel we valiantly sail, Shields prepared for the onslaught of cultural insanity.

No good deed goes unpunished and the verdict will soon be in, Blasphemy against the will of the arrogant majority, That is our crime as illustrious traitors to our species, We stand on this frozen sea for the Piked, Humpback, and the Fin, Unrepentant knights of the benevolent minority, Fighting stinking scupper trash, dripping in blood, gore and faeces.

And though the world be allied against us in common antipathy, We will chase these killers to the Eastern gates of this frozen hell.

Holding the standard of the great whales in glorious defiance, Guided by the poetic instincts of love and empathy, For at the closing of the day and the ringing of the bell, We are defined forever by who we stand with in alliance.

This endlessly rocking ancient cradle from which life is born, Calls for her children to defend the treasures in her rich womb, Into her deep liquid darkness we place our most loving trust, Defending this great Southern realm from which life is cruelly torn, The sanctuary must be a paradise and not a tomb, And so we fight to abate the sin of lethal human lust.

Upon the great shroud of the Southern Ocean we boldly sail, Through gauntlets of crystalline knives, jagged glass mines, drifting floes, Tracking Luciferian killers by their silvery wake, The lives of hundreds of innocent whales forfeit should we fail, Our mission is to intercept, harass, and increase their woes, Reducing their illicit foul profits and the lives they take.

Miles slip away like dried leaves twirling in an Autumn gale, Deeper into the white shroud of darkness we slowly descend, Patiently we advance South around the crumbling icy wall, Our quest almost complete as we close in on that loathsome grail, At the bottom of the world we fight without support or friend, We cannot ignore or dismiss Leviathan's lonely call.

Awsome, literally awesome, thankz Paul, move over Wordsworth hehe...

 [ send green star]

Friday, January 02, 2009

After chasing the Japanese whaling fleet for 2,000 miles from the extreme Western end of their hunting territory near Commonwealth Bay in the Australian Antarctic Territory, to the Eastern side of the Ross Sea, the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin has been forced to cut off the pursuit to return to land for refueling.

"We have engaged them, we have stopped their whaling activities for two weeks and we have successfully chased them out of the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters," said Captain Paul Watson. "We now have to return to land to refuel. We don't have the luxury of refueling at sea like the Japanese fleet has. We don't have the resources to operate two ships down here and we don't have the support of Greenpeace to relieve us. We are doing the best we can with the resources available to us and we are having a significant impact on their kills."

The Steve Irwin has been on the tail of the Japanese whaling fleet for two solid weeks, keeping the fleet under pressure, preventing them from whaling and pushing them continuously to the East.

The harpoon vessel Yushin Maru #2, the first whaler that Sea Shepherd encountered this season, has not been seen since December 20th. "The Yushin Maru #2 is not with the fleet and we have no idea where it is, but that ship cannot kill whales independent of the factory ship Nisshin Maru," reported Captain Watson from the Steve Irwin.

The Steve Irwin will return to the nearest available port to refuel and then will head back out in pursuit of the fleet again as quickly as possible.

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 [ accepted]

Friday, January 02, 2009 

A Poem from Captain Watson

Verses Afloat Upon the Sea

By Captain Paul Watson

A poem in a bottle tossed upon the stormy sea, A message sent forth with hopes for an answer back to me.

Where and to whom will the currents and tide bring my missive?

Will wind and rocks and reef conspire to be dismissive?

A note in a wine bottle tossed in the cold Bering Sea, Delivered an answer fifteen years later back to me, Another in the warm Filipino Sulu Sea did fall, Upon an Indonesian beach where coconut crabs crawl.

Plucked from the heated sand by a fisherman's weathered hand, The note promised a small reward from a far distant land.

I wonder how many bottles float on the briny flood?

And how many messages lie buried in benthic mud?

How many last wills and testaments are entombed in glass?

How many penned floating tragedies survive from the past?

Short notes in bottles are the last gasps of dying sailors, All that remains of ship wrecked merchants, warriors and whalers.

The most passionate of notes were those tossed upon the Main.

The most desperate of epistles written while in pain, Sailors staring into the blackness of oblivion, Fearful of dying, fearful of the unknown and beyond.

Lord George Byron tossed a cork bottled poem into the deep, A note to fair sweet Loukas for whom he missed and did weep Poems and bottled notes are the legacy of sad passion All that remains after the eating of the last ration.

Delivery is dependent upon wind, current and tide, Left to chance, fate and the abyss to reach the other side.

Is there a Buddhist prayer more sacred than a floating note?

Eternity can most plainly see what words have been wrote.

No other missive is so terribly open and bare, Hope sends forth a message with chances of delivery rare.

Words naked under the elements, sea sick with despair, Dizzy words, drunk on the brine tainted befouled bottled air.

There is no lonelier note upon this great Earth, alas, Than a message, a will, or verse, entombed in transparent glass.

Open to the radiant sun, and yet not seen nor read, Words that scream forth with very painful desire to be said.

Words of love, of hopelessness, pleas for help, questions of science, Unending odysseys and dying words of defiance, Words broken upon far foreign beaches, oozing black ink, Lost Bottles containing lost promises that float or sink.

There are many deep secrets in our mother ocean's womb, The seven seas do serve as library, museum, and tomb, Inside a scroll of glass, place and cork your verse or story, Chance will lose it forever or transport it to glory.

There is an art to placing notes in the vast open ocean, Exceptions of course for cases of panicked emotion , A natural cork preferred with a strong coloured glass flask, Acid free paper, and indelible ink for the task.

Set a course for the bottle with the current, wind and tide, Once set free upon the sea your sacred message will ride, Remember to include, position, address and the date.

Throw it well clear of the ship's wake into the hands of fate

Bottles can contain marvellous magical things its true, Treasure maps, genies, riddles and spirits to name a few, The greatest treasure of all are words tossed on a lonely beach, Profound words, poetic words of passion that reach and teach.

All modern poets should entomb their words in coloured glass, Better to be lost forever upon the storm tossed flood, Than ignored in a sad culture of apathy and mud, Where arrogant ignorance chills the soul, freezes the blood.

When I am no more present in thought, memory, or form, A part of me will still continue to weather the storm, My few words will float until on a beach will someday land, When a stranger's hand will pluck my words from the foam and sand.

Bottled messages are anxious genies seeking release.

Confessions begging for absolution from any priest.

Pathways and maps to riches for the very lucky few, A bequeathing to the unknown by an unlucky crew.

A message in a bottle remains a symbol of hope, Tying us to strangers with an immaterial rope, There are very few sailors who have sailed the vast ocean, Who have not posted letters at sea without emotion.

This very verse will be printed on a nautical chart, Into a corked brown bottle I will deliver my art, To be thrown with great hope and wondrous loving emotion, Into the cold dark embrace of the Great Southern Ocean.

- January 2nd, 2009

- Onboard the Steve Irwin in the Great Southern Ocean

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Friday, January 02, 2009 

A Poem

By Captain Paul Watson

What is nothing?

To know all about nothing is to know everything.

And to believe one knows everything is to know nothing.

But how to know when nothing is there

The zero is something that must be there in order to say that nothing is there.

There is often much ado about nothing,

Yet nothingness lies coiled in the heart of man,

Like a worm.

Does the finite reside in the infinite?

Or is it the infinite lurking inside the finite?

Omnibus ex nihil decebdis sufficit unum*

There is no permanence, all matter decays to nothing

And out of nothing all matter originates

The biggest nothing is the black hole

Into nothing is captured something to be absorbed into nothing

It's all creation and annihilation

And as such a waste of the space time continuum

Or is it?

Without time there is nothing.

Without nothing, there is no time

For space is the nothing in which time travels.

Confusion becomes more sophisticated

As quantum mechanics exposes the culprit as nothing

Yet despite atoms being 99.9% nothing,

I can't walk through a brick wall.

Much Ado About Nothing

Perhaps our bodies are immaterial

Constructed out of nothing, by the power of thought.

Objects in dreams can be seen, yet do not exist,

So reality could be a dream of great quantities of nothing.

Out of nothing we were born,

Into nothingness we disappear.

Blackness is the nothing when the spectrum is removed,

Yet all the colours dissolve into whiteness.

And white and black are both reflections of nothing.

And we believe in things we don't even know we believe in,

And thus our lives are shaped by nothing

And out of that nothing comes everything that we are.

And everything we will be before being nothing again.

In the meantime nothing can trick us into believing in something,

And that something is of course nothing at all.

Nor was it ever something outside of the boundaries of nothingness.

And beyond the boundaries of nothingness is nothing,

But nothing ventured, nothing gained

Although all that can be gained is nothing.

There is nothing to be gained by writing about nothing,

Except to attempt to grasp what nothing is, or is not.

And once grasped, the something that is nothing,

Becomes of course, nothing at all.

 One suffices to deprive all out of nothing

· January 1st 2009

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It was not the British government or the British Navy that ended piracy in the Caribbean. There were to many British merchants dependent upon the illicit profits of piracy and a great deal of bribery and corruption swaying the politicians and the military of the day. Not much different than today really. Piracy in the Caribbean was ended by Captain Henry Morgan - a pirate.

In the whale wars, Sea Shepherd crew are passionate pirates of compassion in pursuit of greedy pirates of ecological destruction. Doing what governments have not got the political, economic or moral will to do - upholding the law.

Captain Paul Watson

G'donya Paul, you're a true pirate of compassion...

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The other charge the whalers are constantly making is that Sea Shepherd crew are criminals. This is the most absurd charge of all. What we have is a whaling fleet targeting endangered whales in an established international whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling and in contempt of an Australian Federal Court ruling specifically prohibiting whaling in Australian territorial waters.

They are in violation of the regulations of the International Whaling Commission, (IWC) the Antarctic Treaty, and the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). And they are in violation of Australian law for violating a court order.

They have not been able to cite one law that Sea Shepherd has violated other than their continued rhetorical allegations that we are criminals. If in fact we have committed a criminal act then the logical question is; why have we not been charged with a crime during the five years we have been opposing their illegal activities?

The reason the whalers have not been charged is simply because they have the money and the power to circumvent the law and to bully other countries into not opposing them.

So for eight years and five campaigns Sea Shepherd has disrupted illegal Japanese whaling activities in the Southern Ocean and during that entire time we have not caused a single injury nor have we been charged with a crime.

The facts speak for themselves and our record in undeniable.

In response to my being shot last year, the Japanese deny that there were any shots fired despite the fact that it was reported by Reuters that Japan had informed Australia that shots were fired. They accused me of fabricating the shooting and they accused Animal Planet of scripting it.

If it was fabricated then it was a feat of magic worthy of David Copperfield because the bullet hole in my suit was not there and then it was. I never left the bridge and was interviewed just prior to the shooting with my badge, my vest, my mustang suit and sweater intact. And then without ever going off camera, a bullet is removed from my Kevlar vest and the doctor examines my chest to witness the bruising. We have no such gun onboard the ship as Australian Customs is well aware. And the problem was that there was no law enforcement agency, in Australia or otherwise willing to do a forensic examination of the bullet, badge and vest. Such an examination would have helped to clear up the mystery but science was rejected in favour of political posturing and unsubstantiated allegations.

To underscore the refusal by the authorities to properly investigate the shooting, I jokingly presented the bullet and the badge to William Peterson who plays a forensics investigator on CSI. He said it looked like a bullet to him and the imprint of the badge was clearly visible in the lead of the bullet. Of course William Peterson is not a real forensics detective but it was the best we could get and what I mean by this is that if the Japanese or anyone else has reason to deny the shooting then they should examine the evidence instead of offering their politically biased opinions.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is down in the Southern Ocean because governments refuse to uphold the international conservation regulations that they are signatory to. We act as citizens when our governments fail to uphold their responsibilities.

Over two decades of diplomacy to end illegal Japanese whaling has failed. Diplomacy is a tool that the Japanese government uses to buy time while they kill whales. They have not conceded an inch, they have not lowered their quotas by a single whale and they continue to spit in the face of citizens around the world who want to see the whales protected, especially in an internationally established whale sanctuary.

What is it about the word sanctuary that governments do not understand? You don't kill whales in a whale sanctuary. You don't kill whales to sell their meat when there is an international moratorium on commercial whaling. And you don't debase science by prostituting the name for profits.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is fighting this battle on many fronts, in the field at sea, in the forum of public opinion and if need be, in the courts.

Although we deploy stink bombs to disrupt the whalers, our primary weapon is in fact the most powerful weapon on the planet - the camera.

Instead of cannon, we go to sea with cameras and whereas a frigate of the 18th Century would have had 64 mounted cannons, we have some 64 cameras capturing every movement and every action from different angles using different lenses and capturing sound.

I have been fighting this war to save the whales since 1974. For thirty-five years I have been taking ships to sea to disrupt whaling activities. I've taken on whalers in the North Pacific, the Southern Oceans, in the Bering Sea, the North Sea, the North Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. I've rammed whalers, sunk whalers, boarded whalers, harassed and pursued whalers for three and a half decades and my greatest pleasure in life is depriving whalers of their profits and knowing that whales are swimming free in the ocean that would otherwise be dead without our intervention.

In all that time, I have never been convicted of a felony nor have I been sued and the reason for this is that despite the propaganda of the public relations firms representing the whaling industries - we have been dealing with criminals, and the law for the most part has been on our side and when it isn't we are most careful to walk in the shadow of the law to achieve justice.

In the whale wars, the good guys wear black and fly the skull and crossbones and the reason why we do is because of a lesson learned from history.

cont'd

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Tuesday, December 30, 2008 

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

Cold Case in Cold Waters

Ice, Intrigue, Danger, Death, and Videotapes

A sailor in the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War Two once described his war experience as long days of tedious boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

On board the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin it's also long days of routine interspersed with moments of high excitement and anxiety.

The vastness of these waters is daunting. Chasing after the Japanese fleet involves days of running, trying to catch up to where our helicopter last spotted them. It involves dodging icebergs and more difficult and more dangerous, it involves navigating through unpredictable patches of floe ice. There are large chunks of ice bobbing at the surface called growlers that are difficult to see, especially in fog. These growlers are like mines and to strike one at the wrong angle at the wrong time going at a fast rate of speed could be disastrous. Already this year one of the tourists ships cruising in Antarctic waters was holed by a growler and the passengers had to be rescued.

And if the ship sinks, rescue is days away and even with full immersion suits, the frigid waters of this region would suck the life out of you like a dry sponge sucking up water.

This is a dangerous place. We have no illusions about that. When politicians like Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett make statements about how dangerous these waters are, he is implying that we should do nothing because of the possibility of disaster.

The difference between us and Mr. Garrett is that danger is just a word to him. It is an unknown reality that he rarely comes into contact with in Canberra. He wants us to save the whales without doing anything dangerous, without taking risks and without controversy.

Down here in these remote waters, we see things from a far different perspective. Danger, that is real danger, is all around us. We are well aware of the fragility of the hull of our ship relevant to the harsh hardness of ice and the savage ferocity of polar storms. We are also well aware of the fragility of our own bodies should we be forced to abandon ship into that frigid inky blackness from which survival rests on miracles alone.

We are also well aware that we deal with a ruthless and cruel enemy whose very reason for being here is to inflict agonizing suffering and to deliver cruel death to gentle, sensitive, intelligent and socially complex sentient beings. This is an enemy that retaliates with bullets and concussion grenades. An enemy that churns out a steady stream of rhetoric, condemning those who protect life as "terrorists" while defending their murderous activities under the guise of "research".

What Mr. Garrett does not understand nor appreciate is that there are some things worth taking risks for, some things worth risking all for, and even dying for.

I believe that upholding international conservation law protecting endangered species is worth putting my ship, my crew and myself into harm's way. We are not down here fighting for oil wells or real estate, for religion or for money. We are down here defending the future heritage of humanity from the forces of greed and corruption.

Try as they might to dress us in the cloak of villains and criminals, the world is not fooled. They see dedicated men and women from a dozen nations, volunteering to risk the elements, to risk all to protect and save the lives of whales. To place oneself in harm's way to protect another is the definition of heroism and to do so for another species is to add selflessness to that virtue and the men and women who serve on this ship under my command are all here for one very common reason and that is compassion. They are all true heroes.

Our opposition on the other hand are down here because they are paid to be here. They are hired mercenary thugs who travel here with one purpose and that is to deliver a cruel death to some one thousand defenceless whales each year.

They cry foul when we throw stinking rotten butter onto their decks and accuse us of terrorism for blocking their ships yet they spill thousands of steaming gallons of the hottest blood on earth into the cold dark waters of the Southern Ocean.

In five years of confrontations we have never injured a single whaler in these waters and in over three decades of campaigns around the world we have never caused a single injury to a single person we have opposed. We are so dedicated to non-violence that not one animal has suffered or died to feed the Sea Shepherd crew on the Steve Irwin.

Yet in the bizarre world of public relations where black can be marketed as white for the right price, the propaganda spin literally makes the public dizzy with confusion. Our rotten butter bombs become "acid" giving the impression that we are throwing sulphuric acid into the face of the whalers. The reality of course is that many of the things we eat are technically acid and butter is butyric acid as orange juice is citric acid. What is lost in the "acid throwing" spin is the fact that beer is more acidic that rotten butter.

Our attacks on the whalers employ foul smelling, slippery substances that are all non-toxic, non-allergic, organic and biodegradable.

cont'd

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Friday, December 26, 2008 Sea Shepherd Clashes With Whaling Fleet in Australian Waters 0730 GMT December 26th, 2008 Australian Antarctic Territorial Waters The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Steve Irwin closed in on one of the vessels of the Japanese whaling fleet at 0730 Hours GMT (1930 Hours Sydney Time) on December 26th off the coast of the Australian Antarctic Territory north of the Mawson Peninsula. The Kaiko Maru emerged from dense fog in front of the Steve Irwin. The Sea Shepherd crew pursued and delivered 10 bottles of rotten butter and 15 bottles of a methyl cellulose and indelible dye mixture. "That is one stinky slippery ship," said Sea Shepherd 2nd Officer Peter Hammarstedt of Sweden. The Japanese ship was ordered out of the territorial waters of Australia by Australian citizen Jeff Hansen from Perth, Western Australia. The message was delivered in Japanese. As the Steve Irwin came alongside the starboard side of the Kaiko Maru, the whaler steered hard to starboard and struck the Steve Irwin lightly crushing part of the aft port helicopter deck guard rails on the Sea Shepherd ship. There was no serious damage to either ship. The Sea Shepherd crew's objective was to intimidate the Japanese fleet and to keep them moving Eastward out of Australian Territorial waters. The Sea Shepherd crew have been pursuing the fleet eastward for a week. There is only 90 miles left before the fleet enters the New Zealand Zone. "Our objective now is to chase them out of Australia's Economic Exclusion Zone," said Captain Paul Watson. "I have a chart here and it clearly states that these waters are Australian EEZ. There is an Australian Federal Court Order specifically prohibiting these ships from whaling in these waters. We have informed the whalers they are in contempt of this Court ruling." There is no doubt that Japanese whaling in Australian waters has been severely disrupted. Since Saturday, the Sea Shepherd crew have chased the Japanese fleet for 400 miles through heavy fog, dense ice and nasty weather. During that time they have not been able to kill any whales. "We still have them on the run and we intend to keep them on the run for as long as our fuel resources allow," said Captain Watson.

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Probing treacherous deadly rifts

Staring up at chalky white cliffs

The question is not if but when

We can break through this ice and then

Ahead of us upon this course

Killers who suffer no remorse

Life lies ahead for us to save

Keeping gentle giants from the grave

 wow!!!

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Thursday, December 25, 2008 

WHALE WARS

By

Captain Paul Watson

Sent off by Neptune in Brisbane

In lightening and driving rain

Onboard a famous mermaid fair

To try and make the world aware

In Newcastle we stopped for fuel

In preparation for the duel

Then off to Taz and Hobart town

To prepare for another round

South we pointed our bow once more

Far from Australia's secure shore

Looking for any signs of Whalers

The most evil of all sailors

Finally through the fog and snows

A whaler emerged through the floes

We attempted to mount a raid

Plans to intercept were then made

The boat launched, the crew made ready

Rising seas made things unsteady

The swells rose, the winds increased,

With the snow, temperatures decreased

A flying Dutchman did dangle

Andy had the boat to wrangle

Molly had the phone to handle

Eric got his camera angle

Safety demanded a retreat

Seas of ice and skies of cold sleet

The Yusshin Maru got away

We will get her another day

The Polar winds trapped us in ice

Threatened to lock us in a vice

Dangerous without an ice class

We had to move or be held fast

Bow into that ominous mass

Forcing our way the only task

Slowly towards open ocean

Advancing in such slow motion

Penguins curious watch us pass

This ice will not hold this ship fast

Heaving growlers before us roll

Such ice could take a lethal toll

House size ice chunks bouncing around

Rolling towards us without sound

Weaving, threading our way through hell

Our thin hull - a vulnerable shell

Breaking through into heavy swell

Heavy surf ringing our brass bell

Between two frozen walls we cruise

Orcas guide us. We cannot lose

Sea Shepherd came through mist and snow

As all around grew wondrous cold

As massive icebergs drifted by

Cobalt blue and pearl white do lie

cont'd

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We were still surrounded by massive icebergs but they are easily avoided.

We did have one very beautiful experience when we passed between two gigantic tabletop icebergs. As we cruised between two perpendicular walls of ice a hundred meters in height, we were joined by a pod of Orcas in hot pursuit of some penguins.

By Monday morning, the winds had died down. The helicopter could fly again, both to find us a faster path through the drift ice to the North and to re-locate the Japanese whaling fleet.

The whalers were now some fifty miles from us and we began to close the gap. They were not whaling and appeared to be trying to avoid by moving away from where they thought we thought they were going.

But with a visual on them, we will have them again very soon.

We have found them five days before Christmas, the earliest we have ever found the fleet and hopefully we can translate that extra time into a greater financial loss for the whalers and more lives saved for the whales.

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Wednesday, December 24, 2008 

Update on Operation Musashi
Current mood:  ninja

Captain's Blog

Running an Icy Gauntlet for the Whales

December 22nd, 2008. Off the coast of Antarctica.

By Captain Paul Watson

It has been a very busy and dramatic 48 hours since we first encountered the Japanese whaling fleet on Saturday morning (December 20th).

We had seen and filmed the Nisshin Maru from the air two days previous. They were in the area of Commonwealth Bay off the coast of Terre Adelie. The observation was taken from our helicopter at 3000 feet from thirty miles so we knew the whalers had not seen us.

Then on Saturday morning we spotted a moving target on the radar. The entire area was shrouded in thick fog and dense ice as we moved towards the ship. It could only be a whaler in this area and we could only assume that they thought we were part of the fleet. They did not alter course not did they attempt to speed up.

Suddenly out of the fog, the Yusshin Maru 2 appeared on our port side of the Steve Irwin less than a quarter of a mile off. We watched as crewmembers on the whaler, wearing yellow hard hats scurried across the deck towards a long hanging object hanging from a derrick.

As they began to untie the bindings we saw right away that it was a large net rigged to draw across the entire side of the vessel on a high wire between the fore and aft mast. It was a net designed to keep us from boarding.

At first I thought it was a prop fouling device and responded by turning quickly to port and towards the whaler to cut close across their stern to avoid any attempt to drop a line. I could not afford to have him cross our bow.

I then decided to launch the Delta inflatable with a crew to hit the Yusshin Maru 2 with a rotten butter bomb attack.

Despite the choppy water, the boat was expertly deployed and sent off but was quickly lost from sight in the rising swells. The Yusshin Maru 2 was now two miles in front of us going a top speed.

Unfortunately the GPS on the Delta was malfunctioning and the winds were rising with blizzard conditions. Out of concern for their safety, I called them back and brought the boat back onboard.

We had found them, but now we had another battle on our hands as rising winds and plummeting temperatures began to work mischief with the ice floes. We quickly found our way blocked on all sides as the floes moved and pushed closer together.

Spotting a very large iceberg, we moved towards it to find some security in the lee of that floating tabletop mountain of ice.

And it worked, as a large area of open water was kept ice free from behind the berg. For twelve hours we circled in that lee as the ice moved in closer and closer every hour.

By the next morning the weather reports warned of another 12 hours of bad weather and heavy winds. We had no choice but to find a way to break free. The ice charts indicated that we had a chance of finding open water some twelve miles to the South.

We pointed the bow south and put the nose into the pack and began to push our thousand ton hull into and through the thick ice.

I've got a great deal of experience with ice navigation but 90% of the crew had never been in ice before and it was a harrowing experience for most of them with the thick ice grinding against the hull and large cobalt blue ice tougher than stone banging against the relatively thin steel hull.

The plate in the forward rope locker began to buckle in from the pressure of the ice. It was to much for one cameraman who scrambled out of the hold absolutely certain that the hull would be breached. I went down with Charles Hutchings the Chief Engineer and we determined that it was not as serious as it appeared. Bosun Dan Bebawi had his deck crew erect shoring beams of timbers to brace the hull and that helped considerably.

Slowly we made our way towards where we believed there would be open seas as King and Adelie penguins stood on ice floes and watched us curiously as we passed them by.

Finally after seven hours we had muscled our way through 12 miles of ice until we could see open water in the distance.

As we approached the blue water, our relief was short lived. Huge swells coming from the South were surging into the ice pack presenting us with an ordeal of truly frightening proportions.

To gain the security of the open water we would have to thread our way through swells salted with hundreds of large growlers, chucks of hard ice the size of houses that were being tossed about on the heaving swells like beach balls. I had never seen again quite like it and it was intimidating. If just one of those hellish ice balls connected with the ship it would split us open like a ripe tomato.

Avoiding a rolling growler to the port put us dangerously close to another monster ice ball on the starboard. The ship rolled and twisted and I gave it bursts of speed to slide past one threat only to cut the engines to avoid the next threat.

I would have rather re-lived the 7 long hours grinding through the ice than to have weathered the twenty minutes of that nightmarish gauntlet.

But we burst through, out of the ice and into just heavy swells and I don't think I have ever seen a crew more relieved to see just heavy stormy seas instead of those same stormy seas filled with rolling, tumbling, jagged chunks of heavy polar ice.

cont'd

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http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-081219-1.html

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EXTINCTION IS DIFFICULT TO APPRECIATE

Gone forever are the European elephant, lion and tiger. The Labrador duck, giant auk, Carolina parakeet will never again grace this planet of ours. Lost for all time are the Atlantic grey whales, the Biscayan right whales and the Stellar sea cow. Our children will never look upon the California condor in the wild or watch the Palos Verde blue butterfly dart from flower to flower.

Extinction is a difficult concept to fully appreciate. What has been is no more and never shall be again. It would take another creation and billions of years to recreate the passenger pigeon. It is the loss of billions of years of evolutionary programming. It is the destruction of beauty, the obliteration of truth, the removal of uniqueness, the scarring of the sacred web of life

To be responsible for an extinction is to commit blasphemy against the divine. It is the greatest of all possible crimes, more evil than murder, more appalling than genocide, more monstrous than even the apparent unlimited perversities of the human mind. To be responsible for the complete and utter destruction of a unique and sacred life form is arrogance that seethes with evil, for the very opposite of evil is live. It is no accident that these two words spell out each other in reverse.

And yet, a reporter in California recently told me that "all the redwoods in California are not worth the life on one human being." What incredible arrogance. The rights a species, any species, must take precedence over the life of an individual or another species. This is a basic ecological law. It is not to be tampered with by primates who have molded themselves into divine legends in their own mind. For each and every one of the thirty million plus species that grace this beautiful planet are essential for the continued well-being of which we are all a part, the planet Earth -- the divine entity which brought us forth from the fertility of her sacred womb.

As a sea-captain I like to compare the structural integrity of the biosphere to that of a ship's hull. Each species is a rivet that keeps the hull intact. If I were to go into my engine room and find my engineers busily popping rivets from the hull, I would be upset and naturally I would ask them what they were doing.

If they told me that they discovered that they could make a dollar each from the rivets, I could do one of three things. I could ignore them. I could ask them to cut me in for a share of the profits, or I could kick their asses out of the engine room and off my ship. If I was a responsible captain, I would do the latter. If I did not, I would soon find the ocean pouring through the holes left by the stolen rivets and very shortly after, my ship, my crew and myself would disappear beneath the waves.

And that is the state of the world today. The political leaders, i.e., the captains at the helms of their nation states, are ignoring the rivet poppers or they are cutting themselves in for the profits. There are very few asses being kicked out of the engine room of spaceship Earth.

With the rivet poppers in command, it will not be long until the biospheric integrity of the Earth collapses under the weight of ecological strain and tides of death come pouring in. And that will be the price of progress -- ecological collapse, the death of nature, and with it the horrendous and mind numbing specter of massive human destruction.

And where does that leave us, dear reader? Do you intend to remain in your seat, oblivious to the impending destruction? Have you got you face pressed up against the window, watching the grim reapings of progress? Or are you engaged in throwing out anchors, sacrificing the materialistic pleasures of civilization and risking your all, that your planet and your children may live?

The choice is unique to this generation. Future generations will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor theknowledge. It is up to us -- you and I.

Remain a parasite OR become an Earth Warrior. Serve your Mother and prosper OR serve civilization and besmear yourself with the filth and guilt of ecocide.

What a great read, brilliance...thankyou once again Paul...

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Remain a parasite OR become an Earth Warrior.
By Captain Paul Watson

We are at the present time living in an age of mass extinction. Each year, more than 20,000 unique species disappear from this planet forever. This represents more that two species per hour. Species extinction is the fuel that supports the ever increasing progress of the machinery of civilization.

Individual humans are for the most part insulated from the reality of species loss. Alienated from the natural world, guided by anthropocentric attitudes, the average human being is unaware and non-caring about the biological holocaust that is transpiring each and every day.

The facts are clear. More plant and animal species will go through extinction within our generation than have been lost thorough natural causes over the past two hundred million years. Our single human generation, that is, all people born between 1930 and 2010 will witness the complete obliteration of one third to one half of all the Earth's life forms, each and every one of them the product of more than two billion years of evolution. This is biological meltdown, and what this really means is the end to vertebrate evolution on planet Earth.

Nature is under siege on a global scale. Biotopes, i.e., environmentally distinct regions, from tropical and temperate rainforests to coral reefs and coastal estuaries, are disintegrating in the wake of human onslaught.

The destruction of forests and the proliferation of human activity will remove more than 20 percent of all terrestrial plant species over the next fifty years. Because plants form the foundation for entire biotic communities, their demise will carry with it the extinction of an exponentially greater number of animal species -- perhaps ten times as many faunal species for each type of plant eliminated.

Sixty-five million years ago, a natural cataclysmic event resulted in extinction of the dinosaurs. Even with a plant foundation intact, it took more than 100,000 years for faunal biological diversity to re-establish itself. More importantly, the resurrection of biological diversity assumes an intact zone of tropical forests to provide for new speciation after extinction. Today, the tropical rain forests are disappearing more rapidly than any other bio-region, ensuring that after the age of humans, the Earth will remain a biological, if not a literal desert for eons to come. The present course of civilization points to ecocide -- the death of nature.

Like a run-a-way train, civilization is speeding along tracks of our own manufacture towards the stone wall of extinction. The human passengers sitting comfortably in their seats, laughing, partying, and choosing to not look out the window. Environmentalists are those perceptive few who have their faces pressed against the glass, watching the hurling bodies of plants and animals go screaming by. Environmental activists are those even fewer people who are trying desperately to break into the fortified engine of greed that propels this destructive specicidal juggernaut. Others are desperately throwing out anchors in an attempt to slow the monster down while all the while, the authorities, blind to their own impending destruction, are clubbing, shooting and jailing those who would save us all.

SHORT MEMORIES

Civilized humans have for ten thousand years been marching across the face of the Earth leaving deserts in their footprints. Because we have such short memories, we forgot the wonder and splendor of a virgin nature. We revise history and make it fit into our present perceptions.

For instance, are you aware that only two thousand years ago, the coast of North Africa was a mighty forest? The Phoenicians and the Carthaginians built powerful ships from the strong timbers of the region. Rome was a major exporter of timber to Europe. The temple of Jerusalem was built with titanic cedar logs, one image of which adorns the flag of Lebanon today. Jesus Christ did not live in a desert, he was a man of the forest. The Sumerians were renowned for clearing the forests of Mesopotamia for agriculture.

But the destruction of the coastal swath of the North African forest stopped the rain from advancing into the interior. Without the rain, the trees died and thus was born the mighty Sahara, sired by man and continued to grow southward at a rate of ten miles per year, advancing down the length of the continent of Africa.

And so will go Brazil. The precipitation off the Atlantic strikes the coastal rain forest and is absorbed and sent skyward again by the trees, falling further into the interior. Twelve times the moisture falls and twelve times it is returned to the sky -- all the way to the Andes mountains. Destroy the coastal swath and desertify Amazonia -- it is as simple as that. Create a swath anywhere between the coast and the mountains and the rains will be stopped. We did it before while relatively primitive. We learned nothing. We forgot.

So too, have we forgotten that walrus once mated and bred along the coast of Nova Scotia, that sixty million bison once roamed the North American plains. One hundred years ago, the white bear once roamed the forests of New England and the Canadian Maritime provinces. Now it is called the polar bear because that is where it now makes its last stand.

cont'd

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Aside from being an outlaw, Musashi was also a master strategist. I have incorporated his strategy of a twofold way of pen and sword which means the approaching of the problem through confrontation and communication or education.

Our physical interventions to stop the killing of whales is the sword, and our participation in the television series Whale Wars is the pen.

And we also carry the most effective weapon ever designed - the camera.

What will happen this year?

It is hard to predict with certainty? Will we find the fleet? I am confident that we will. Will they react more violently this year than last year? We suspect that they will. Will we prevent them from killing whales? I am confident that we will be able to do so.

But as Musashi once observed with regard to strategy, we need to proceed towards the whaling fleet with absolute resolve, with courage and determination, focusing on the goal of saving the lives of as many whales as possible, undeterred by threats or physical violence, unconcerned with the consequences, prepared and cautious yet committed to a policy of no retreat and no surrender. We need to understand that when we say we are willing to risk our lives for the whales that it is not a meaningless slogan on a banner to us - it is what we do. We need to demonstrate to the world that there are human beings willing to risk all to protect diversity and the right of other species to live unmolested by the rapacious greed of humankind. We fight not just for the whales in those remote southern waters - we fight for the diversity of life and thus the future of our own kind upon this planet.

It will be a dramatic campaign and I will direct all my energies into ensuring that it will be an effective campaign and that the lives of whales will be saved.

I cannot tell you in words just how wonderful it is to have intervened for the whales in the seasons past. To know that at this moment, there are whales swimming freely in those lonely waters that would now be dead if not for our interventions. To know that so many baby whales have been brought into being because we were able to force the whalers to spare their mothers is a source of great happiness for me. I feel them out there, so alive and so aware, in those dark and cold waters and it is this connection that calms my soul with the purring hum of contentment in my heart. In truth to die in defense of life is the most honourable death I can think of and thus there can be no fear - only enlightenment and contentment.

And so it is southward that our bow is pointed and it is two thousand miles to the south amongst the ice bergs in the remote frozen south polar seas that we will once again skirmish with the killers of the gentle giants of the sea.

And for their sake and for the sake of our children we will prevail and we will drive these vicious killers from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and thus we will restore the integrity of the Sanctuary in a world where governments seem to have lost the meaning of the word "sanctuary."

And so for the whales we sail on towards what I believe will be our most aggressive and most effective confrontation with the Japanese whalers ever.

Captain Paul Watson
Master of the Steve Irwin
Fonder and President - The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

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Monday, December 08, 2008 Dear Friends,

We are finally on our way. My ship Steve Irwin and my crew left Brisbane in Queensland, Australia on December 4^th. We made a brief stop in Newcastle in New South Wales to take on fuel and oil and departed on December 7^th. We will make another brief stop in Hobart in Tasmania to top up the fuel tanks to allow us the maximum range when we head to the Ross Sea to intercept the Japanese whaling fleet.

We are under no illusion that this will be an easy campaign. Japan has budgeted 8 million dollars to oppose our efforts. What this means we have no idea. Will they send a gunboat? We don't know for sure but they have said they will arrest us if we interfere with their illegal whaling operations. How they will do that is unknown. Will they fire on our ship or board our ship?  We don't know. We just need to be prepared for all possibilities.

This is a four part campaign. Basically it gets down to "prepare, search, intercept, and stop".

We are prepared. We have improved the ship substantially since the last campaign.

We have a newly constructed helicopter deck and hanger, a completely over-hauled helicopter and in addition to our very experienced ex-military (U.S. Marine) pilot we also have a dedicated helicopter mechanic.

On deck we have a new hydraulic winch and two new fast interceptor boats.

We have three times the safety equipment required including immersion suits, survival suits, lifeboats, and EPIRB's. We also have a medical doctor onboard and officers holding EMT certificates.

We have a master welder, master carpenter, and a crew of very experienced engineers led by our longtime Chief Engineer Charles Hutchings. We have qualified divers, communication techs, and navigators

We also have new tactics, new equipment and new ideas to help us with our mission.

And we have an excellent crew. There are 40 crew presently, plus a camera crew from Animal Planet to shoot the 2^nd season of Whale Wars. A third of the crew is Australian and a third American with the remaining third composed of citizens from Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Bermuda, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, Hungary and Japan.

A third of the crew are women and half of the crew are returning veterans.

Upon leaving Hobart, we will begin the 2^nd phase of the campaign - the search. This year the Japanese whaling fleet is operating in the Ross Sea and that is where we will be heading. It's a long haul to get there and once there it's a vast area to search but we will scour those remote frozen seas until we find them and once we do we will intercept them and hopefully before they kill too many whales.

There are quite a few differences between this campaign and our previous four voyages to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

This year we will be very much alone down there.

The new Australian government of Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett has reneged on their election promises and they will not have any ships in the Southern Ocean. In fact the Australian Navy has been ordered into port - practically all of their ships and their officers and crew have been sent home for a two month vacation. There is not a single Australian government ship patrolling the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters despite the fact that the Japanese whaling fleet has been killing whales in direct contempt of an Australian Federal Court ruling specifically forbidding the killing of whales in waters over which Australia has declared sovereignty.

Greenpeace will not be down in the Southern Ocean, despite raising millions of dollars for that express purpose. They have backed out primarily because they do not want to be associated with Sea Shepherd actions. Their excuse is that they need to address the trial of two of their Japanese activists. Greenpeace has the funding to do both and they certainly have the ships. The truth is that they have surrendered the Southern Oceans to the Japanese whaling fleet. They no longer have the stomach for confrontation.

The key to success with the Japanese whalers is persistence. We must never retreat or surrender the Southern Ocean Sanctuary to them. We must continue to undermine their profits and we must continue to expose their illegal activities to the world.

We must do this no matter what obstacles they throw up before us, no matter how violent they become, no matter what political, media and economic pressure they direct at us.

They can call us all the names in the world but they cannot deny the reality that they are targeting threatened and endangered whales in an established whale sanctuary in violation of the international moratorium on commercial whaling and in contempt of the Australian courts.

Sea Shepherd on the other hand has not, and is not violating international law. We have not injured anyone and we have not been charged with any crime. We are acting in accordance with the principles established in the United Nations World Charter for Nature by working to uphold and enforce international conservation law.

I have called this year's campaign - Operation Musashi. This is in recognition of Miyamoto Musashi, who is to the Japanese what Robin Hood, Ned Kelly and Jesse James are to the British, the Australians and the Americans.

cont'd

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Sea Shepherd News: Report from Madagascar As cute as things may look in the children's film Madagascar Two, the reality is far from pretty. Human over-population and over exploitation of natural resources is turning this once lush semi-tropical paradise into a wasteland. And as bad as things are on land, the conditions are far more dire in the surrounding seas. All along the coasts of Madagascar, there has been a dramatic decrease in all marine life. It was a decline that began in 2000 and is now rapidly escalating. Thanks to excessive demand from China, the sea cucumbers have disappeared and octopus populations have been severely impacted. Many fish species have simply disappeared. Yet the fishing continues and will continue until nothing is left because people cannot afford to discontinue their exploitation even in the face of total certain collapse. Roger Samba, a villager from Andavadoaka, in Toliara Province, recently told the media, "It is difficult to catch enough fish to sell. People go far away, fishing from early in the morning until late at night, to catch not even 10kg or 20kg of fish - just 5kg." Shark populations have been severely effected as natives slaughter every shark they can find to feed the lucrative shark fin market. The coral reef system along Madagascar's southwestern coast at 500km long is one of the largest in the world. Every month these reefs become more and more barren. In short they are dying. The fishermen argue that they are so poor that they cannot stop fishing yet if they continue they will be forced to stop with nothing left and the ecological and sociological consequences will be enormous and devastating. Demand for shark fin in China, where the meat is considered a delicacy, and for sea cucumbers, which are believed to be an aphrodisiac, have become major sources of income in Madagascar, which exports up to 20 tonnes of shark fins every year. A kilogram can fetch as much as 140,000 ariary ($56) on local markets, and up to $1,000 in China. Alibaba seafoods, the company owned by Yahoo is one of the leading corporations responsible for diminishing shark populations. "It's a strange world, where an internet company like Yahoo is responsible for the destruction of the world's shark populations," said Captain Paul Watson. Madagascar has very little enforcement. "The laws regarding the exploitation of marine resources are not implemented here in Madagascar," said Man Wai Rabenevanana, director of the Institute of Marine Science in Toliara. "The state doesn't invest enough in managing marine resources and capacity building to allow them to manage resources effectively." Madagascar has a long way to go in protecting its marine resources. "It is very difficult to stop fishermen from catching shark and collecting sea cucumbers," said Rabenevanana. "These fishermen are poor and the attraction of fishing for sharks and sea cucumbers is huge. If we truly want to protect our resources we must address the market. We must do more to discourage the Chinese from eating shark fin soup; perhaps we can even find an alternative." The decline of the primary predator could unbalance the entire marine food chain. Studies in the Caribbean have shown that too few sharks mean other carnivorous species increase and eat too many other useful fish, such as those keeping algae on the coral in check, which can eventually endanger the entire reef ecosystem. "The disappearance of sharks would have devastating impacts on marine habitats and the local communities that depend on these," Frances Humber, a marine biologist studying shark populations in southern and western Madagascar with the British conservation organisation, Blue Ventures, told IRIN. "A collapse in the shark fishing industry could threaten the economic stability of the region, and would mean the loss of livelihoods for thousands of fisherman." Clarisse, a sea cucumber and octopus supplier in Belavenoke said: "Life is getting harder all the time here, because there is no way of earning money except from fishing. It is only the sea that gives us money, but the fish are fewer and fewer, and I am worried about this." But not it seems, so worried as to do anything about it.

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....the Whale Call crew who were stuck outside the freekin gate are in shot when Darryl Hannah and sscs 1st mate leave the wharf...and if you look hard enuf you'll see the back of my head photographing Darryl and Skye together hehehe...it waz so cooool i love it....enjoy...

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Sunday, December 07, 2008 

Sea Shepherd is Undeterred by Japanese Threats
Category: Blogging

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Sea Shepherd is Undeterred by Japanese Threats

"When you are willing to die for a whale, the threat of arrest is somewhat trivial." Said Captain Paul Watson.

"It can only further our cause of defending the whales if the Japanese take Sea Shepherd crewmembers hostage and haul them back to Japan for prosecution." Said Captain Paul Watson. "The diplomatic, political and jurisdictional issues will be profound. How will the Australian government react to Japan seizing Australian citizens in the Australian Antarctic Territory and hauling them back in chains to Japan? The Australian government will have to react to defend its citizens or else admit that Australia is a subservient vassal state to Japan and that the rights of its citizens is secondary to selling wood chips to Japan."

How will New Zealand react? Or the United States, South Africa, the Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain and Germany. All of these crew are citizens of countries that are signatory to enforcing the laws that Japan is violating.

Japan has stated that if arrested by the Japanese coastguard, Sea Shepherd crew will be charged with forcible obstruction of business under Japanese law. Sea Shepherd's defense will be that we are acting in accordance with the United Nations Charter for Nature that calls upon individuals and non-governmental organizations to uphold international conservation law.

"We must never forget that Japan is targeting threatened and endangered whales in an officially established whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling and in defiance and contempt of an Australian Federal Court ruling prohibiting the killing of whales in the Australian Antarctic Territory." Said Sea Shepherd international director Kim McCoy.

In an unconfirmed claim from a government official to Sea Shepherd it was reported that Japan threatened to cancel the loading of three iron ore shipments unless Australia agreed to not send a government ship down to monitor the activities of the whaling fleet.

"Judas sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and now the Australian government has sold out the whales for a load of rust." Said Captain Watson.

The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin departed today from Newcastle in New South Wales after taking on a full load of fuel, oil and provisions.

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Hi Tony, What a shame you couldn't get aboard, it must have been exciting  none the less..have been watching the departure on the news..I wish them all the success and prays I can muster..Cheryl

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 [ accepted]

...hey dudes, well none of us were allowed onto the wharf becoz they were loading water barrels and provisions onto the boat, a safety issue hehe, and we waited hrs even tho we had press passes, freekin government rules...so we ended up splitting but i got a cupple of pix, and i might be able to get some from Paul's photographer from Sydney who happens to be a great friend of mine hehehe...

Darryl Hannah and Skye Bortoli, with the Steve Irwin 1st mate left of pic... 

Whale Call secretary, Debs Raymont, and Darryl Hannah and Peter Carrette, photographer in back ground...

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Captain Paul Watson expects to intercept the Japanese whaling fleet in the Ross Sea area around sometime during the last 10 days of December. "Hopefully we will arrive in time to give the gift of life to the whales this Christmas and hopefully we will see 2009 as the last year that these outlaw whalers continue to slaughter these intelligent, defenseless and gentle sentient creatures."

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Thursday, December 04, 2008 

Category: News and Politics

The crew includes 33 men and 15 women. 14 of the crew are from Australia and 4 from New Zealand with the rest of the crew hailing from Japan, Canada, Great Britain, the USA, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, South Africa, Hungary, and Bermuda. 8 of the crew are representing Animal Planet for the documenting of the 2^nd season of the series Whale Wars. The other 40 crewmembers make up the crew for Operation Musashi. 23 of the crew are returning veterans and for the remaining 25, this is their first time on a Sea Shepherd campaign.

Included in the crew that departed from Brisbane is Daryl Hanna, a longtime dedicated environmental activist and actor whose films include Blade Runner, Kill Bill, Roxanne and Splash.

The Steve Irwin will make a brief stop for fuel before proceeding to the Ross Sea to intercept the Japanese whaling fleet.

The Japanese whaling fleet is targeting 935 threatened Piked whales plus 50 endangered Fin whales in an established Whale Sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling.

"Our objective is to sink the Japanese whaling fleet – economically." Said Captain Paul Watson.

The whales do not have time to wait until awareness is changed in Japan. The killing must be ended now and the key to success is to interfere with profits. Sea Shepherd intends to make sure that the financial losses of the Japanese fleet exceed their profits. This is the only language that the whalers understand.

Sea Shepherd has given the name of Operation Musashi to this year's campaign in reference to the legendary samurai ronin and master strategist Miyomoto Musashi who is to Japan what Ned Kelly, Robin Hood and Jesse James are to Australia, England and the United States.  

Musashi wrote of the "two-fold way of pen and sword" and that means that confrontation plus communication is the strategy to be followed this year. Sea Shepherd will physically block the Japanese harpoons and we will be producing a dramatic television series to communicate the problem and our solution to the world.

All Sea Shepherd tactics are designed not cause bodily injury. Last year, the whalers accused Sea Shepherd crew of throwing "acid" on them. While technically rotten butter is butyric acid, it is less acidic than beer or orange juice. But it does stink very bad and thus interferes with their work.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society expects the Japanese to be more aggressive this year. They are losing money and their image as whale butchers is becoming a growing embarrassment. Last year the whalers threw concussion grenades and fired live shots at the crew of the Steve Irwin. We expect they will be more hostile facing another year of losses.

The Sea Shepherd crew are also concerned over Greenpeace allegations that Sea Shepherd is a violent organization. "This kind of irresponsible rhetoric could get us killed," said Steve Irwin 2^nd Officer Peter Hammarstedt of Sweden. "If Greenpeace continue to make these unsubstantiated accusations, it could serve to justify violence by the whalers against us. We would like to request that they cease and desist from making remarks that may possibly endanger our lives."

cont'd

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To: Paul Watson

Subject: Re: Mr. Audla, this is my response.

I deny nothing that is of my culture nor will you push me in that direction. Your intolerance and incitement of hate is dangerous...world wars were fought to end your kind of single-mindedness.

Captain Watson's Rebuttal

Dear Mr. Audla,

You accuse me of hate after perpetuating the vicious act of slaughter on such gentle and intelligent creatures. That is absurd and you know it. I don't hate your culture, I despise your actions and the mass slaughter of these whales is a despicable and obscene act. How many tusks did you "harvest" from this massacre? How much money will you receive from selling these bloody trophies of cruelty? You have not said a word about the real reason you slew these Narwhals. You killed them for money and in doing so you are no different than all the other human vultures in the world that are tearing this planet apart for material gain.

I'm sure the slaughter was video taped. Release the images to prove me a liar.

World wars were fought to end my kind of singlemindedness? Really? Name me a world war that was fought to prevent people like myself from saving wildlife? There was a war to stop madmen from slaughtering people but I can't recall a war that was fought to stop people from saving lives and caring for the living Earth except for now, when the forces of greed are literally destroying life on this planet at an unprecedented rate. No Mr. Audla, no such war has ever been fought until now and it is quite obvious who is on the side of life and who is on the side of death.

Your slaughter of these Narwhals is a crime against nature and ultimately a crime against humanity. The killers of these whales pulled the triggers and unleashed a nightmarish horror against these gentle creatures that you refuse to accept or imagine.

I have no intention of pushing you anywhere nor do I have any intention of asking you to deny your culture. You are obviously a prisoner of your culture, as are we all.

I confess that I am intolerant of death, cruelty and slaughter and that kind of intolerance comes from a deep love of nature and of life and that Mr. Audla is the very opposite of hate.

I have no respect for such slaughter and there is nothing on this Earth that can ever convince me that what was done to these whales can ever be justified.

Those tusks will soon be adorning some rich prick's mantlepiece and the money will be yours. But it will be blood money and it will represent another piece of flesh hacked from the living body of the planet. At some point we will soon take too much and it will collapse all around us and being human we will look around and wonder how could this have happened? And we will blame all the other creatures and each other, and we will still not see that it is our own greed and arrogance that has brought it about.

Enjoy the fruits of your slaughter and celebrate Christmas with the justification that what was done was right. I see nothing to celebrate this Christmas and nothing to be proud of in my species. I can only mourn for the deaths of your victims.

All over the world, people rush to defend stranded dolphins and whales. Yet when these sentient beings came to you - you chose to kill them in the most barbaric manner imaginable.

Call me what you will but accusing me of hatred is absurd. I don't hate any of the men who killed those whales. I pity them for their ignorance and their brutality. 

Captain Paul Watson

G'donya Paul, they ain't human captain...

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Captain Paul Watson: This is the most ludicrous statement of all. Narwhals are intelligent and social animals. They would not flee beneath the ice and they would sense the opening of the ice from the ice-breakers. They would take advantage of any opening and they would use it. There is no data to back up this opinion. And besides, it would have been worth a try even if there was – a chance is always better than no chance at all. And as for stressing the animals, it is absurd to suggest that they would be stressed by a rescue operation yet not stressed by a mass execution. Social animals seeing, feeling and hearing their family slaughtered as they await the violent impact of a bullet. DFO must think we are all really stupid to believe that a rescue attempt would stress the animals more than a mass extermination.

When the DFO states that cutting a path through 50 kilometres of ice by other means is impossible, they deflecting the option of the icebreaker. It would be an easy task for an icebreaker. They do it all the time. No expense is spared each year to break paths far longer for sealing vessels from Newfoundland and Quebec. And if it was impossible why would they state that using the icebreaker would stress the animals? They could have simply said that it was not possible.

DFO: These sort of entrapments are, unfortunately, a natural occurrence and usually happen in areas where humans do not see them. This population of narwhal is a healthy and productive one, so even with the numbers of narwhal lost in Pond Inlet, there should not be a significant effect on the overall population.

Captain Paul Watson: What a ridiculous statement to make. "This population of narwhal is a healthy and productive one." In fact this population of 500 narwhal are now very much dead and very much non productive. I've never seen a healthy and productive dead population of whales The Narwhal is an endangered species or it would be if Canada had an Endangered Species Act which it does not. Everywhere else it is considered endangered.  I think 500 whales is a very significant number and there is no doubt it will have a very large impact on the overall population.

The DFO is also saying that it's okay to slaughter these whales because we as humans have discovered them. If not, they would have died. In my opinion when we as humans see an animal in distress, just as we see a human in distress, it is our responsibility as humane and caring people to rescue them. All over the world, people come to the rescue of stranded whales. Not in Canada. We kill them instead.   

DFO: Unfortunately, the realities of location and climate limit our options. A difficult decision had to made as to what was the most humane way to deal with this situation and the one to allow the local Inuit to harvest the whales was seen as the best given the limited options. 

Captain Paul Watson: It was the limitation of their imaginations and their empathy that limited their options. Bureaucrats always take the easy path and the easiest path is all to often the lethal option – the final solution.  Besides there was political pressure from the Inuit to allow them to use the lethal option in order to "harvest" the animals for meat and their tusks, especially their tusks.

DFO: I hope this answers a couple of your questions and concerns.

Captain Paul Watson: Not even close.

The Narwhal Killer's Second Response to Captain

Watson's Criticism of the Slaughter.

From: Terry Audla [mailto:execdir@qia.ca]

Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 11:59 PM

cont'd

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Wednesday, December 03, 2008 

Response to the DFO on the Death of the Narwhals
Category: Blogging

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans does not respond to me or the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society but one of our supporters received the response below in regard to the Narwhal slaughter

Captain Paul Watson: The DFO may be saying they took the situation seriously but they did not have a single officer on site when the slaughter of the Narwhals began. That is NOT taking the situation seriously. The officers arrived after the killing began so how could they have possibly assessed the situation prior to the order for execution of the whales.  

DFO: There are, however, a number of issues that limited our options in response to the situation.

Captain Paul Watson: The first issue is simply a complete lack of empathy for the whales.

DFO: The major issues are location and climate. Pond Inlet is located at the northern tip of Baffin Island. Flying time to the community is approximately three hours north of Iqaluit, which is itself three hour's flying time north of Ottawa. Getting to the community with any sort of equipment would be difficult. Transportation options are extremely limited given the terrain and extreme isolation of the community. It is also currently minus 30+ plus the wind chill in the community, which presents its own challenges.

Captain Paul Watson: Canadian government Coast Guard icebreakers are equipped with helicopters and there was an icebreaker in the area so this is not an excuse for not being able to reach the area.

DFO: The option of sending an icebreaker to save the whales was looked at. Our scientists indicated, however, narwhals are particularly sensitive to noise and the engine noise from the ice breaker would stress the whales further and drive them deeper under the ice where they would drown. This would also preclude the whales from following the icebreaker out of the entrapment. Cutting a path out of the ice with other means is also impossible as open water is 50 kilometres away from the entrapment site.

cont'd 

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and please forward this email to your friends please...

https://my.seashepherd.org/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=247&srcid=184 

https://my.seashepherd.org/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=184&srcid=247 

http://www.seashepherd.org/support-us/donate-paypal.html 

http://www.seashepherd.org/support-us/mail-phone.html 

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When Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith say that they deplore any violence in the Southern Ocean they completely ignore the most violent action of all – the cruel slaughter of the whales.

Blood is being spilled, tons of blood and lives are being lost, nearly a thousand sentient beings, cruelty is being practiced and the misery and suffering the whales endure is horrific.

But instead of condemning this violence, the bureaucrats scream in indignation because Sea Shepherd crewmembers tossed some rotten butter on the deck of a whale killing ship. Instead of condemning the illegal activities of the Japanese whalers, the bureaucrats make exaggerated accusations of eco-terrorism against Sea Shepherd to which we can only respond with an "either arrest us or shut up."

In over 31 years of campaigns, not a single person has been injured by a Sea Shepherd action. Not a single member of our crew has ever been convicted of a crime nor have we been sued. Why? Because we are not the criminals.

We hunt down criminals and we intervene against their illegal actions and unfortunately most governments stand with those who profit from the destruction of the natural world even when those activities are illegal.

It was not the British government and the British Navy that shut down piracy in the Caribbean in the 1t^th Century. It was Henry Morgan – a pirate.

Sometimes you need a pirate to deal with pirates.      

G'donya Paul, thankz for the blog, you're a fair dinkum legend...

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This year there will be no Australian or New Zealand ships in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory – only Japanese whaling ships, possibly a Japanese gunboat and the Steve Irwin and our crew.

But we're not naïve. This will be our fourth voyage to the Southern Ocean. We are fully aware of how remote the area is, and we are completely aware of how dangerous the waters and the situation is, with icebergs, unpredictable weather, and violently defensive Japanese whalers.

We know the risks and we are prepared to accept them. The alternative is unacceptable. To do nothing as a thousand whales are condemned to die a violent death from the cruel and illegal explosive harpoons is not an option for us.

Our ship is equipped with the best safety equipment available. We have a medical doctor onboard, we have adequate medical supplies and we have crewmembers trained as EMT's. When our crews go out in the boats they are wearing wetsuits under their survival suits. We take precautions. But we are not foolish enough to believe that a disaster could not happen in these cold, lonely, remote, and stormy waters.

But that is the risk that we are willing to take because the only other alternative is to do nothing and that is the path taken by  most governments and cowards. And how could we die better than facing fearful odds while defending the life of the gentle giants of the sea?

But with all the talk about risks and dangers and all the talk of violence between whale defenders and whale killers, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are not talking about risk when it comes to the whales.

With the whales we are talking certainty of death. Unless we intervene, 935 Piked (Minke) and 50 Fin whales will die an agonizing death. We may not be able to save them all but we can save as many as we can with the resources we have available to us. If Greenpeace had agreed to work in cooperation with us, with two ships we could have the opportunity to shut down the killers 100%. But Greenpeace despite raising millions of dollars to send a ship down to the Southern Oceans has taken their cue from Peter Garrett and like Garrett they have reneged on their promises. Garrett gets to remain in office despite the disappointment of the voters who elected him to defend the whales and Greenpeace, well, Greenpeace gets to keep the money.

And the whales! The whales are the collateral damage to the selfish political and economic agendas of government and big business environmentalism.

And they will both condemn us as we head south. The governments will denounce us and call us lawless and Greenpeace will scathingly attack our tactics knowing that if they call us violent often enough, people will come to believe it. As the Nazi Satanic genius of marketing Joseph Goebbels once so famously said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,"

The questions that Peter Garrett and the governments of Australia and New Zealand must be ready for is simply how are they going to respond if Australian and New Zealand citizens are captured by the whalers? Will they stand by and do nothing as these citizens are hauled back to Japan, accused of terrorism for defending whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary? How will they respond if Australian and New Zealand citizens are injured or killed by violence from the Japanese whalers? Will they ignore them? Will they continue to use the excuse that they are taking the "diplomatic" approach? Will they just simply say, "we told you not to interfere?"   

And how will the governments of the Netherlands, Great Britain, Canada, the United States, South Africa, Sweden, Bermuda, and Hungary respond in what will clearly become an international incident if anyone of our crew are injured, killed or captured by these whalers?

And so we see whales being blown apart and concussion grenades and bullets fired at us by people who have the audacity to call us violent for throwing rotten butter on their decks. They accuse us of throwing "acid" on them and of course this leads the imagination of the scientifically challenged to visualize people screaming in pain from disfiguring sulfuric acid whereas rotten butter also known as butyric acid is less acidic than beer, orange juice and milk.

cont'd

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Monday, December 01, 2008 

Category: Blogging

"Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only, Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me, For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all."

We realize that governments don't view saving whales to be as important as round the world yacht racing or offshore fishing, so we were not surprised to hear that New Zealand and Australia have stated that they will not be prepared to rescue any Sea Shepherd crew in the event of accident or attacks from Japanese whalers.

The Australian government has announced they will not send a Customs vessel to the Southern Ocean this year and the entire Australian Navy has been tied to the docks and the sailors sent home for two months in a cost saving measure by the Australian Government.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett has said he has allocated $6 million for non-lethal research on whales yet he says there will be no government ships in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. It's a mystery how this non-lethal research is going to be carried out without observations in the field?

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully told the media that New Zealand "cannot underwrite the welfare and safety of every individual who is in the Ross Sea."

Not that we asked, nor do we expect any help, but it is interesting that both Australia and New Zealand are making a point in advance of saying that we are on our own this year.

New Zealand and Australia have spent millions rescuing yachtsmen, fishermen and whalers. In February 2007, the Japanese government asked New Zealand to help a crewman who fell gravely ill near the Ross Sea. A New Zealand rescue helicopter airlifted him to a hospital.

 cont'd

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"It is an old ship, built in 1958 and it is a ship that has served us well in campaigns between 1997 and 2008," said Captain Watson. "We would love to keep her as an educational vessel but our focus is on upholding marine conservation law and we need faster ships like the Steve Irwin and the Sirenian to hunt down the criminals destroying our oceans. The Farley Mowat, as much as we love that ship is no longer up to the tasks we require of her."

The government will also have to pay for legal fees related to the court case against two Farley Mowat crew members. The trial is scheduled for trial in April 2009.

Paul Steele, director general of DFO's protection and conservation branch, noted in a May 2008 e-mail to the department's top managers that these legal costs are going to be "significant" and will put financial "pressure" on his branch.

"For a slaughter already subsidized by the Canadian tax-payers, this is yet another example of how far the government is willing to go to squander tax dollars to keep the public from monitoring and documenting the killing of seals," said Captain Paul Watson.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society considers the Farley Mowat to be on active duty.

"Our ship is a thorn in the side of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans," said Captain Watson. "It is a symbol of resistance against wildlife slaughter and ecological destruction. It is a financial burden and a political embarrassment to the Canadian government. It is an enduring mistake for Loyola Hearn's folly, his shameful legacy now that he has retired from politics. The ship where it sits in Sydney, Nova Scotia is now a symbol of government waste, arrogance and incompetence. The Farley Mowat is doing a wonderful job right where it sits."

Thanks Paul, we know how much you love and treasure the Farley Mowat and all the adventures you've been on together and we gratefully appreciate the work you've done with the vessel...

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Monday, December 01, 2008 

Category: Blogging

Canada appears to have adopted the Napoleonic Code in their dealings with organizations and individuals that threaten the sacred Canadian cultural ritual of bashing out the brains of baby seals.

Not only is it a crime under the very Orwellian "Seal Protection Act" to witness, film or photograph a seal being killed, but it now appears that Canada is attempting to deliver a sentence and penalty without a trial to a party not charged with any crime.

Back in April of this year, the Dutch registered Farley Mowat Captain Alex Cornelissen, a Dutch citizen and Peter Hammarstedt, a Swedish citizen were arrested in international waters by the Canadian government and charged with the "crime" of approaching closer than a half a nautical mile to an area where sealers were clubbing and shooting seal pups on the ice.

The Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat was seized on April 12^th and brought in under guard to Sydney, Nova Scotia where it has been held ever since, apparently at a cost of $487,000.

The ship was never arrested nor have charges been brought against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the owner of the ship.

Yet this week, the Canadian government filed a statement of claim against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for $487,000. They did so without going to court and without even notifying Sea Shepherd that they were doing so. Sea Shepherd learned of this from an article in the Calgary Herald.

Of course, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society does not have any intention of paying a single penny to the government of Canada. Sea Shepherd considers the boarding and seizing of the Farley Mowat to be an act of high seas piracy.

The government originally demanded that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society pay a $50,000 bond for the release of the ship. Sea Shepherd considered this to be a ransom and refused to post it.

Captain Watson responded by setting conditions for the release of the Farley Mowat, demanding that the government pay $1,000 a day for every day they held the ship, that the vessel be returned in the same condition it was taken, that charges be dropped against Captain Cornelissen and 1^st Officer Peter Hammarstedt and that Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Loyola Hearn apologize for his illegal seizure of the ship.

In October, Captain Paul Watson issued a media release stating that the government was saving Sea Shepherd a great deal of money by holding the ship and paying for the berthage of the vessel thus freeing Sea Shepherd to direct financial resources towards the preparation of the Steve Irwin for Operation Musashi.

This was a calculated media release to embarrass the Canadian government and to illustrate to the Canadian taxpayers, just how much it was costing them to keep the Farley Mowat in custody.

It was a ploy that worked. A few days later, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans informed Sea Shepherd that the ship would be released. Sea Shepherd responded by reminding the government of the conditions for receiving the ship back.

And now it looks like the DFO has countered by filing a statement of claim for the tax dollars they wasted on the charade they pulled to impress the sealers of Newfoundland and Quebec. The statement of claim filed by the DFO includes security, shipyard and berthing expenses, as well as marine survey costs incurred between April 12 and the end of November. The security costs were to keep Sea Shepherd from stealing the vessel back and to keep the sealers from sinking the ship.

In addition to the $487,000, the government also paid for air surveillance to track the Farley Mowat, travel and overtime for fishery officers and coast guard surveillance, according to documents obtained under access to information laws and made available to the Canadian media.

The costs attached to air surveillance and expenses for fishery officers were not detailed in the documents, but logs show that the icebreaker George R.Pearkes spent nearly 12 full days between March 29 and April 14 supporting the RCMP in tracking and seizing the Farley Mowat.

If the government prevails in their attempt to confiscate the Farley Mowat they will then have to pay for the decommissioning and disposal of the ship which could be a significant amount.

"It costs money to retire a ship, and that is a bill that the government of Canada will have to pay - not us," said Captain Paul Watson.

If the ship is returned to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the Society intends to utilize the vessel as a marine conservation museum in New England. The society does not intend to use the ship for future campaigns.

cont'd

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We hope not. Our concern is for the survival and the welfare of the pilot whales and now the Faeroese have a concern in common with us – the survival and welfare of their own children and themselves.

Perhaps it was simply because his own brain had been damaged by years of eating toxic whale meat.

But perhaps, they will heed the advice of their doctors and perhaps the Ferocious Isles will cease their horrific slaughter of the defenseless whales and the bays and shores of the islands will cease to run red with whale blood and the air will cease to be filled with the pitiful screams of dying whales on the deaf ears of cruel men and women who have no pity, and no mercy for the agonizing death they bring to these gentle giants every year.    

Or perhaps they will continue in their quest to be the only nation to be deserving of the Darwin Award for their sheer ecological stupidity, ruthlessness and senselessness.

Every child in the Faeroe Islands suffering the effects of mercury poisoning now are doing so because their parents and their government willfully and guiltily allowed their health to be compromised out of a blind allegiance to the stupidity of culture and tradition.

The doctors in making their statement said, "It is with great sadness that this recommendation is provided."

Speaking for the whales, we can only answer that it is with great joy that the news is received.  

We are sorry for the children of the Faeroe Islands but we did what we could when we warned them over 20 years ago that the consequences they are now suffering were inevitable.

We told them so.

Thankz Paul, i'm afraid we've been telling them and the Japanese government for years bout the deadly  Minamata Disease caused from the highly toxic methylmercury, PCBs and other dioxins...on the one hand these governments promote whale meat az a health food, and on the other, they place warnings on their canned whale meat advising pregnant women not to eat it...now what does that say...the Japanese even makes dog pellets from whale meat and  cat food from dolphin meat...so they're not only poisoning their children from eating whale meat dishes in school canteens, but  also their pets...omg, what next???  

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Sunday, November 30, 2008 

Category: Blogging

I hate to say I told you so, especially when it involves the health and lives of children, but the people of the Danish Protectorate of the Faeroe Islands are now reaping the foul seeds of poison that they have been  ignorantly been sowing for decades.

Back in 1985, 1986 and again in 2000 I repeatedly warned the people in the Faeroes that if they continued to eat pilot whales they would suffer the effects of mercury poisoning.

The thousands of pilot whales they cruelly and mercilessly slaughter on their beaches every year are highly toxic because of the chemical assault on the North Sea of generations of industrialized pollution.

And that is what the people of the Faeroe Islands have done. They have willfully abused the health of their own children in defense of a loathsome barbaric tradition that has no place in the 21^st Century.

Now finally after two decades of warnings from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, their own medical doctors are now admitting that we have been right.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16159-faroe-islanders-told-to-stop-eating-toxic-whales.html

According to the New Scientist – "the chief medical officers of the Faroe Islands have now officially recommended that pilot whales no longer be considered fit for human consumption, because they are toxic - as revealed by research on the Faeroes themselves."

From the New Scientist:

In a statement to the islanders, chief medical officers Pál Weihe and Høgni Debes Joensen announced that pilot whale meat and blubber contains too much mercury, PCBs and DDT derivatives to be safe for human consumption.

"It is with great sadness that this recommendation is provided," they said. "The pilot whale has kept many Faroese alive through the centuries."

But in "a bitter irony", they said, research on the impact of the pollutants on the Faroese themselves has shown that mercury, especially, causes lasting damage.

The work has revealed damage to fetal neural development, high blood pressure, and impaired immunity in children, as well as increased rates of Parkinson's disease, circulatory problems and possibly infertility in adults. The Faroes data renewed concerns about low-level mercury exposures elsewhere.

The medical officers note that it wasn't the Faroese who created the pollution. But "these results have already led to tightened restrictions on pollution worldwide. We must therefore also ourselves acknowledge the consequences."

cont'd

Will Sanity Prevail?

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been actively fighting the slaughter of pilot whales in the Faeroe Islands since 1983. We have had four campaigns to the islands and during those campaigns we disrupted the killing and focused international media attention on the slaughter. In 1986, the BBC produced the documentary Black Harvest about our campaigns to these savage islands. We have had crew arrested and we have had crew beaten by the whalers. It has been a long, hard, frustrating and vicious fight.

But now it looks like the Faeroese will have to end their bloody tradition of cruelty and slaughter or else inflict further harm upon their own children and themselves.

Is a tradition, this so called "gift from God" as the islanders call the "Grind" or the massacre worth sacrificing the health and lives of their own children?

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