Japanese whale poaching vessel, Nisshin Maru, rams S. Korean fuel tanker, Sea Shepherd ships Sam Simon, Steve Irwin, and Bob Barker

 

JAPAN ORDERS AUSTRALIAN FLAGGED SHIP TO LEAVE AUSTRALIAN WATERS THEN ATTACKS

 

The Nisshin Maru rams the Steve Irwin as the
Sea Shepherd fleet block whaling fleet’s illegal refueling efforts.
have been rammed by the Japanese whaling fleet’s massive factory vessel, theNisshin Maru. The floating slaughter-house is eight times the mass of the Steve Irwin.

The Bob Barker and the Steve Irwin were behind Sun Laurel,Steve Irwin on portside, Bob Barker on starboard.

On load-speaker, the Shonan Maru No. 2 ordered Sea Shepherd’s Australian flagged ship, the SSS Sam Simon, which is located in the Australian Antarctic Territory, to leave the area on the orders of the Government of Japan.  Concussion grenades were thrown at the Bob Barker and the Steve Irwin by the crew of the Nissin Maru.

Captain Peter Hammarstedt radioed the whaling fleet’s factory vessel, the Nisshin Maru, and told them that theBob Barker intended to maintain course and speed, that the moral and legal obligation to avoid the collision was on the Nisshin Maru.

The Nisshin Maru, turned and was approaching from starboard. It nearly collided with Bob Barker, before it turned into Steve Irwin, and rammed the Sea Shepherd ship’s stern.

The Nisshin Maru continued on its collision course, and rammed the portside of the Steve Irwin.

The Nisshin Maru then rammed the Bob Barker. The Steve Irwin increased its speed ahead to avoid the Nisshin Maru.

The Bob Barker took the Steve Irwin’s position on the portside of the Sun Laurel.

The Steve Irwin circled back, and the Nisshin Maru pushed the Bob Barker into the Sun Laurel, sandwiching theBob Barker between itself and the Sun Laurel. The Nisshin Maru then fell back behind the Bob Barker, and rammed full speed into the portside stern of the Sun Laurel, shattering their portside life-raft, and destroying the davit to launch the other life-raft.  The Nisshin Maru then rammed the Bob Barker again from behind, destroying one of their radars, and all of their masts.

The Bob Barker completely lost power and issued a MayDay distress call.  As this distress call was issued, theNisshin Maru turned away and began fleeing north.

Sea Shepherd Australia Co-Campaign leader, former Senator Bob Brown, has informed the Australian Government of the Japanese multiple breaches of international law and called for Tokyo to be required to remove its ships from this region north of Australia’s Casey Base and to desist from its gross violation of Australian and international laws. He says that the Australian Navy should be dispatched to restore the law.

Currently the Sun Laurel is being escorted north by the Sea Shepherd fleet, since they have no emergency life-saving devices in the potentially treacherous waters of the Southern Ocean.  Director of Sea Shepherd Australia, Jeff Hansen said, "The Nisshin Maru has committed the maritime equivalent of a hit and run accident.  They have rammed the Sun Laurel, putting them in perilous danger, and simply abandoned them."

All vessels are heading north with the illegal whale poachers from Japan two miles ahead of Sea Shepherds’ fleet.

All three Sea Shepherd ships were rammed, with the Bob Barker sustaining the heaviest damage.  Power has been restored to the Bob Barker. Fortunately no crewmembers sustained injuries. The crews completed the mission to block the refuelling and will continue to protect the whales in the sanctuary.

The Nisshin Maru blasted the Bob Barker with water cannons, and rammed them into the Sun Laurel
photo: Sea Shepherd Australia/Glenn Lockitch

The Nisshin Maru rams the Bob Barker and the Sun Laurel
photo: Sea Shepherd Australia/Glenn Lockitch

 

February 20, 2013 -The Nisshin Maru rams the SSS Bob Barker,
SSS Steve Irwin and South Korean tanker Sun Laurel

The Japanese whalers' factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, rams the much smaller Sea Shepherd ships, the Bob Barker and Steve Irwin, along with the Korean tanker, Sun Laurel, in the Antarctic Whale Santuary. video: Sea Shepherd Australia

What I learned the day a dying whale spared my life

 

It was 1975, Greenpeace's first campaign, and the bodies of six Soviet-slaughtered whales were lying lifeless in the swell. I thought to myself, is humanity really this insane?

Paul Watson on top of a slaughtered whale calf in the foreground, with the Greenpeace ship Phyllis Cormack behind, on 26 June 1975. Photograph: Rex Weyler/Greenpeace

The greatest gift that I have ever received is also my great and enduring curse.

It was June 1975 and I was a crew member on the first Greenpeace campaign to protect the whales. It was off the coast of northern California, 60 miles offshore. Before us, spread across the waters like some invading foreign armada, was the Soviet whaling fleet.

The ships were grey, black, and freckled with rust. From out of the side of the largest vessel, the huge factory ship Dalni Vostok, a steady stream of thick steaming blood poured into the sea.

We felt pretty small on board the 85ft Phyllis Cormack, the halibut seiner we had chartered out of British Columbia, skippered by big no-nonsense Captain John C Cormack.

We were a crew of 13 and I was the first officer.

This was before the 200 territorial limit had been imposed and when the Russians freely fished and whaled up to 13 miles off the shore. The Americans did not like it, but legally there was nothing they could do. Thus it fell to a small band of idealistic young Canadians to challenge the whale killers off the Californian coast.

We had been searching for them since April starting in the north off the Queen Charlotte Islands. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack and we had no idea of where to even begin looking.

However in early June we received a tip-off from a source I can never reveal in Washington DC that if we wanted to find the Russian whalers, we needed to go south. As we proceeded south, the source supplied us with the movements of the Soviet fleet.

And there we were, 60 miles off the town of Eureka, approaching a massive factory ship and three fast, killer boats, each mounted with harpoons painted the colour of robin's eggs.

We caught them hunting, arriving on the scene just as a harpoon tore into the backside of a young sperm whale. The whalers left it there floating with a radio buoy attached as they took off in pursuit of another victim.

We launched a Zodiac inflatable and I stood in the bow, the bowline wrapped tightly around my wrist for support as we approached the body bobbing up and down in the swells.

I stepped off the Zodiac and on to the carcass of the whale. It was still very warm and blood oozed and bubbled from a gaping raw wound in its side. A long yellow polypropylene rope protruded from the ugly wound. It had been cut and the nylon strands danced about on the surface of the water, whipping rivulets of blood into a salmon pink tinted foam.

The Phyllis Cormack came alongside for our photographer Rex Weyler to take a picture of the whale, using my body as a gauge to measure the animal. It was small, around 22 feet. A young whale.

My bare hand on the whale felt the warmth of its body and the blood on my skin was hot. The whale was lying on its left side and the right eye was open, staring sightlessly skyward. The lower jaw opened and closed with each swell and I could see the lower two rows of pointed teeth.

Suddenly there was a shout from the Phyllis Cormack. The harpoon vessel was returning and they had a fire hose blasting a stream of high-pressure water from the bow.

I jumped into the Zodiac as the Soviets quickly lashed the dead whale to the side of their ship and made way back to the factory ship. We followed and filmed them as they transferred the whale over to the slipway, where it was hauled by cables and winches up on to the flensing deck, where men with long sharp knives waited to flay the body.

More blood gushed from the scuppers into the sea.

And we felt so helpless, so small, and so useless.

After the harpoon vessels transferred their whales, they spread out to resume the killing. We followed one of the harpooners in three Zodiacs as the Phyllis Cormack slowly followed.

It was not long before the Russians found another pod, and once again the chase was on. But this time we were chasing the whalers as they pursued the whales.

Our strategy was simple. We would place our bodies between the whales and the harpoon. We were Gandhi-influenced non-violent advocates, and this was the only tactic we could think of to protect the whales without injuring the whalers.

We had practiced what we would do for over a year and I turned to Bob Hunter, our expedition leader, who was in the boat with me, and said, "Well Bob, this is it. Let's do it."

I gunned the outboard motor, and our inflatable boat roared ahead of the harpoon vessel, with the other two inflatables on either side. Within minutes we were racing ahead of the whaler and behind a pod of eight magnificent sperm whales.

They were racing for their lives, unable to take in enough air for a deep dive. They were spouting rapidly and we could see rainbows sparkling from the mist they expelled into the air. We were so close we could smell their breath, and our objective was to block the path of the harpoon.

Would the Soviets risk killing a human being to slay a whale? The answer to that question was a mystery to us.

But we were tempting them to give us an answer one way or another. As our three inflatable boats raced before the bow, I looked back to see an ape of a man stooping behind the massive harpoon cannon, trying to get one of the whales in his sight. He was not succeeding, and was clearly frustrated.

Suddenly a larger man came storming forward along the catwalk and began yelling into the ear of the Soviet harpooner. The harpooner nodded and crouched down behind his gun as the man who we later identified as the captain stood up and looked down at us with a smile. He brought his finger slowly across his throat, and that was when we realised that Gandhi was not going to work for us that day.

I saw the pod of whales rise up on a swell in front of us just as the harpoon vessel rode up on a swell behind us. As our inflatables descended into the deep trough between the two large swells, a horrendous explosion boomed over the whales.

The explosive-tipped harpoon whizzed through the air above as the attached cable slashed down upon the water close by, cleaving the surface like a heavy sword.

In front of us a female sperm whale screamed in pain as she rolled on her side, with a fountain of hot steaming blood pouring from her. Beside her, the largest whale in the pod rose up from the surface of the sea and dove. As his mighty tail slapped the water with a bang, he disappeared. The other six whales carried on fleeing as the huge male turned to defend them.

For a moment we thought he would attack us. We had all seen the old prints and woodcuts of enraged sperm whales cutting Yankee whaling boats in half with their sabre-like teeth, spilling wounded whalers into the sea.

We had little time to think as the ocean exploded behind us, and this great whale hurled himself from the water trying to reach the man behind the harpoon.

They were ready for him and had quickly reloaded the harpoon gun with a unattached harpoon. As the whale rose up and out of the water, the harpooner lowered the gun, pulling the trigger at point black range. With a thundering explosion the harpoon tore into the whale's head.

He screamed. It was an excruciating cry of pain, shock, and confusion. He fell back into the sea, rolling in agony on the surface in a sea stained scarlet with his blood.

The two dying whales struggled to hold on to life between the harpoon boat and the six of us in three boats, sitting motionless on the swells.

I could not take my eyes off the dying whale closest to us. His tail flayed the sea and pink foam frothed all around him.

Then suddenly the whale was looking directly at me. I saw his huge eye and I could see that he saw me. At that moment he dove once again and I saw pink bloody bubbles coming to the surface, moving closer to our boat. Within seconds the whale's head shot above the surface of the sea and began to tower above, rising higher, but as if in slow motion, and angled so that we could see that his intent was to come crashing down upon us.

And as his head rose ever higher I saw that eye once again, so close that I could see my own reflection in that deep dark orb. Suddenly I was struck with the realisation that this whale understood what we were doing.

His lower jaw hung down almost touching the side of our inflatable boat, so close that I could have reached across and encircled one of the six-inch teeth with my fingers.

His muscles tensed and he stopped rising, and began to slowly slide at an angle back into the sea. I kept eye contact with him until his eye sank beneath the surface of the sea and disappeared.

And so he died.

He could have killed us, but he had not, and the look in that eye has haunted me ever since.

I felt understanding and I knew he knew that we were there to save him, not to kill him. I felt ashamed that we had failed. I felt powerless and angry, frustrated and awed all at once. I felt indebted to him for sparing my life.

But I also saw something else in that eye, and that was pity.

Not for himself nor for his kind, but for us.

An uncomfortable pallor of shame fell over me as I sensed what the whale perceived. It was indeed pity, but pity for us, that we could take life so ruthlessly, so thoughtlessly, and so mercilessly; and for what?

We sat there in our little inflatable boats in the midst of the Soviet whaling fleet with the bodies of a half dozen sperm whales lying lifeless in the swell. I watched the sun begin to set in the west and I remembered that the Russians were killing whales primarily for the valuable spermaceti oil.

Spermaceti oil is valued for its high resistance to heat, and thus it is used in machinery where there is excessive heat. One of the demands for this oil by the Soviets was for use in the production on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Here they were slaughtering these magnificent, intelligent, socially complex, wondrous sentient beings for the purpose of making a weapon designed for the mass extermination of human beings.

And I thought to myself, are we really this insane?

It is that thought, that unanswered question, that has haunted me every day since.

It is from what I saw in the eye of that whale that has led me to devote my entire adult life to the defence of the whales and the other creatures of the sea, because I know that if we cannot save the whales, the turtles, the sharks, the tuna, and the complex marine biodiversity, that the oceans will not survive. If the life in our oceans is diminished, humanity is diminished and if the oceans die, humanity will die; for we cannot survive on this planet with a dead ocean.

• Captain Paul Watson is a co-founder of the Greenpeace Foundation and the founder in 1977 of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He is currently on board the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin intervening against the killing of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary by the Japanese whaling fleet

Sea Shepherd Invites Concerned Nations to Witness Activities in Southern Ocean

 

The Yushin Maru performing "scientific research"

Photo: Australian CustomsIn response to recent reports stating concern by Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United States over potential conflicts in the Southern Ocean between Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Japan’s whaling fleet, Sea Shepherd would like to invite Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United States to send a representative to join the Sea Shepherd ships at sea to witness first-hand the “incidents” about which they have concern.

This invitation echoes the call on Monday documented in news reports by Australia’s Environment spokesman Greg Hunt stating he wrote to Prime Minister Julia Gillard proposing that Australia send a Customs vessel to monitor the impending face-off in the Southern Ocean. Citing a resolution passed by the International Maritime Organization in 2010 compelling whaling vessels to ensure the safety of protesters during demonstrations, rallies or confrontations on the high seas, reports state that Australia has “warned Japanese whaling vessels it won't tolerate protesters being threatened.”

Australia states it remains “resolutely opposed” to commercial whaling, including so-called "scientific" whaling, and has expressed concern about hunting activities in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

Sea Shepherd wishes to thank Australia for its support. Until now warnings by the nations noted herein have been directed primarily at Sea Shepherd, while simple facts in the case have being ignored, specifically:

1. The Japanese whaling fleet is in contempt of the Australian Federal Court that ordered them to not kill whales in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory.
2. The whales are being slaughtered in an internationally established whale sanctuary.
   The definition of a “sanctuary” is: noun: a consecrated place where sacred objects are kept or noun:  a shelter from danger or hardship. This fact is not being considered by the nations concerned.
3. The Japanese destroyed a Sea Shepherd vessel, the New Zealand-registered Ady Gil, and refused to cooperate with New Zealand investigating authorities. They injured an Animal Planet cameraman and almost killed six crewmembers without any legal or civil consequences whatsoever.
4. A Japanese harpoon vessel deliberately rammed the Sea Shepherd vessel, the Bob Barker, causing excessive damage.
5. A Japanese whaling vessel deliberately collided with the Sea Shepherd vessel, the Robert Hunter(renamed the Steve Irwin).
6. Sea Shepherd crew have been injured by water cannons and bamboo spears.
7. Captain Paul Watson was shot during an incident between the Steve Irwin and the Nisshin Maru.
8. Not a single documented injury has been caused to any of the Japanese crew by the Sea Shepherd crew.
9. Sea Shepherd has a policy of non-violence and has never caused an injury to a person in the entire 35-year history of the organization.
10. Sea Shepherd has a policy of working within the law and has not had a criminal or civil conviction in the entire 35-year history of the organization.
11. The only reason Sea Shepherd is intervening is because the Japanese whaling fleet is killing protected and endangered species in an internationally established whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling. Sea Shepherd is simply trying to uphold international conservation law where diplomacy has failed and where there has been a failure of enforcement by the signatory nations of the International Whaling Commission.

Sea Shepherd invites Australia to send a ship to monitor the situation and to keep the peace. Similarly, if New Zealand, the Netherlands or the U.S. are truly concerned about safety at sea, they should send a representative onboard the Sea Shepherd ships and the Japanese vessels to observe the situation for themselves.

The SSS Bob Barker in the Southern Ocean
Photo: Billy Danger / Sea Shepherd

Sea Shepherd Australia wishes to make it clear that Sea Shepherd does not wish nor intends to do anything illegal or violent. We never have and we never intend to.

The governments of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands claim to oppose whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary — a sanctuary they themselves voted into existence — but none of these governments is actively protecting the sanctuary. Australia is taking Japan to court but most likely Japan will ignore any ruling from the international court just as they have ignored the Australian ruling. Where is the enforcement of the integrity of this internationally designated sanctuary? Where are the sanctions against Japan for blatantly ignoring international conservation law?

“The least these governments can do is to observe the situation first-hand to get an objective understanding of the situation instead of simply condemning Sea Shepherd and ignoring the violence and the crimes of the Japanese whaling fleet,” said Sea Shepherd founder and President Captain Paul Watson.

For further information:

SBS World News - Customs must monitor whaling

The Courier-Mail - Customs vessel must monitor hunt

Visit our
Operation Zero Tolerance
site for more information about our
2012-2013 Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign

Japanese Whalers Fire Their First Shot of the Season – at Sea Shepherd

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

The Japanese whaling fleet's factory vessel, the Nisshin Maru
Photo: Sea ShepherdIt looks like the Japanese whaling fleet is ready to rumble.

They fired their opening shot today by having the United States 9^th District Court issue an injunction against Sea Shepherd and Captain Paul Watson, specifically.

The court order was a single page e-mail granting the injunction despite the fact that the preliminary injunction was denied in February 2012 by Judge Richard Jones in Seattle.

In a completely unprecedented move, the preliminary injunction was granted by three judges on the 9^thCircuit before a hearing has taken place and before the trial on this matter slated for September 2013.

It is a complex situation whereby a United States Court is issuing an injunction against Dutch and Australian vessels carrying an international crew, operating out of Australia and New Zealand in international waters and the waters of the Australian Antarctic Economic Zone. In addition the Court has ignored the fact that the Japanese whalers are in contempt of a court order by the Australian Federal Court and the whaling takes place in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

What is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society going to do?

Sea Shepherd’s position is clear: Our ships, officers and crew are 100% committed to achieving a zero-kill quota on whales. This is Operation Zero Tolerance and 120 crewmembers from 26 different nations are prepared to risk their lives to defend endangered and protected whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherd is committed to defending the integrity of this internationally established sanctuary.

What is the purpose of a whale sanctuary codified into international law if Japan can kill whales within its territorial waters while in contempt of the Australian Federal Court?

We expect that the Japanese whaling fleet was waiting for this ruling before departing from Japan. They will find when they arrive that we will still be there guarding the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary with our ships and our lives.

“We will defend these whales as we have for the last eight years – non-violently and legally,” said Captain Paul Watson.

"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, our selves and all."
- Walt Whitman

For the whales,
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Captains, Crew, Directors and Staff

The Nisshin Maru
Photo: Sea Shepherd

The Nisshin Maru in dry dock
Photo: Sea Shepherd

Visit our
Operation Zero Tolerance
site for more information about our
2012-2013 Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign

The SSS Sam Simon is Unveiled in Hobart, Tasmania

December 10, 2012

by Captain Locky Maclean

The SSS Sam Simon is the newest vessel
to join Sea Shepherd's fleet

Photo: Carolina A Castro / Sea ShepherdAfter months of speculation, anticipation and the announcement that Los Angeles-based philanthropist and co-creator of TV’s “The Simpsons,” Sam Simon, had donated funds for the purchase of a ship, Sea Shepherd's new Antarctic patrol ship, the SSS Sam Simon, was unveiled today in the port of Hobart, Tasmania, docked at Macquarie Wharf 1.

Her 56-meter hull painted bright white with a classic Sea Shepherd Conservation Society logo on her sides, and displaying a large “S” on her tall black smokestack, the Sam Simon has clearly received several months of careful preparation prior to Sea Shepherd's most ambitious Antarctic campaign yet.

Registered in Melbourne, Australia, the Sam Simon carries a crew of 24 international volunteers, ready to brave the Southern Ocean to seek out and shut down the illegal Japanese whaling fleet.

The vessel, retired from service by the Japanese Government in 2010, has since been laid up in Shimonoseki, Japan, alongside the very ships Sea Shepherd will confront this season.

Originally built as Seifu Maru in 1993 by IHI shipyard in Tokyo, to a high standard with no expense spared by the Japanese Government, the ice-strengthened steel vessel was operated by the Maizuru Meteorogical Observatory, a department of the Japan Meteorological Agency, out of Kyoto Prefecture.

While Sea Shepherd and most of the world agrees that the word “research” has no place in the Institute of Cetacean Research’s (ICR's) whaling program, Seifu Maru was indeed responsible for a considerable amount of real ocean current data contributing to Japan's western North Pacific Whaling Program (JARPN).

Captain of the Sam Simon, Locky Maclean, stated: “After months of secrecy, it is such a great feeling to finally be able to fly the Sea Shepherd flag from the main mast, and yes, Sea Shepherd now owns a real Japanese research ship!”

With four vessels departing for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, Sea Shepherd's Operation Zero Tolerance aims to find the Japanese whaling fleet and chase it out of the Antarctic Treaty Zone without a single whale killed.  It is Sea Shepherd's most ambitious campaign, and the culmination of a decade's conservation work in the Antarctic, which has drastically reduced the amount of whales killed by Japan's ICR.

Japan's ICR has set itself a quota of nearly one thousand minke and 50 fin whales to be culled during the 2012/2013 Australian summer in Antarctica.

The Sam Simon will be open for public tours Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Hobart prior to departing for the Southern Ocean next week.

The SSS Sam Simon
Photo: Carolina A Castro / Sea Shepherd

Visit our
Operation Zero Tolerance
site for more information about our
2012-2013 Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign

My other passion

Back in 1995 a show appeared on TV, The New Adventures of Flipper.  When i saw this show on TV i fell in love with dolphins and all other sea life.  I wanted to become a marine biologist and spend my life working for the sea and it’s life, but God had other plans. 

I still have a love for the sea and i get hooked on shows and movies like The Cove, Whale Wars, and the coming soon Blood Dolphins.  It hurts to watch these shows because every time i see one of animals killed… well it sucks.    

After seeing the Cove i wanted to hunt me some  people. if you have never seen this movie you need to watch it and be just as mad as i am.  see the thing i don’t get is that if you kill a dog you can be thrown in jail, but if you kill a dolphins… you can make money.  the question i have is “how can people be so mean?” 

Now please don’t think i am some kind of tree hugger or anything like that. i eat meat and i am a hunter but i don’t kill for fun i kill to survive.  My family never had a lot of money growing up and deer season was a gift from God. we never killed more then we needed and we never shot unless we knew we had the kill.   I still eat meat, not as much as i use too but i still do. i will never be upset for a person killing for food but when it come to a unless kill that upset me. 

Whales, dolphins, sharks and every other living thing in the oceans need to be left alone.  what will happen when all the whales are gone from the ocean, haven’t  you all seen Star Trek 4.