Sea Shepherd's 'Leviathan'

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Bigger, faster, more powerful: Sea Shepherd's

'Leviathan' to enforce law against whaling criminals

CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network

by CHRIS JOHNSON and BEN MARTIN

 

USA (4 August 2006) -- Confrontational anti-whaling

group Sea Shepherd is preparing to bring a bigger,

faster and more powerful boat to Australia next month

ahead of the next Japanese whale hunting season in the

Southern Ocean.

 

The new ship is called Leviathan and is being refitted

in the Caribbean. It will depart for Australia late

next month.

 

Founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society, and the ship's captain, Paul Watson said the

Leviathan was a long-range vessel that would enable

him to intercept the Japanese fleet.

 

" We will be bringing two ships, a helicopter and about

60 volunteers to the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. Quite

a few of the crew will be Australian, " he said.

 

" We get called lots of things but the bottom line is

that Sea Shepherd is not a protest organisation.

 

" We intervene against illegal activities in accordance

with the United Nations World Charter for Nature that

allows for non-government organisations and individual

intervention to uphold international conservation

law. "

 

Sea Shepherd was criticised this year by both the

Japanese and Australian governments for its vigorous

methods, but conservationists hail the group as a

vital pro-active organisation in the fight against

Japan's so-called scientific whaling.

 

Scientists said yesterday that a revolutionary process

for determining a whale's age could be ready within

six months, eliminating the last excuse Japan has for

killing hundreds of whales a year.

 

Japan claims it kills whales for scientific research

and measures the animal's age by extracting a

substance similar to ear wax from the dead whale.

Under the new method, pioneered by the whale research

centre at Southern Cross University in NSW, a sliver

of skin from a whale is used to analyse the DNA of the

whale and determine its age.

 

Associate Professor Peter Harrison said whale research

boats could pick up dead skin shed by whales when they

breached the surface and analyse part of the

chromosome to determine age to an accuracy of between

five and 10 years.

 

The Japanese argument that nearly a thousand whales

had to die each year for proper scientific research

was nonsense, he said.

 

http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e060804.html

 

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