Whalers spend winter hiding

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:

 

 

 

Whalers spend winter hiding

 

 

HOBART, TOKYO--Sea Shepherd Conservation Society captain

Paul Watson on March 2, 2008 reported that the crew of the Sea

Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin had pitched two dozen bottles of rancid

butter onto deck of the Japanese whaling factory ship Nisshiin Maru

in Porpoise Bay, off Antarctica.

The stink bomb attack came toward the end of a winter-long

campaign that saw Sea Shepherds, joined at times by Greenpeace and

the Australian coast guard, stalking the Nisshin Maru since the

Steve Irwin sailed from Melbourne on December 5, 2007. The Nisshin

Maru, four whale-catching vessels, and the supply ship Oriental

Bluebird spent most of the winter trying to elude observation,

rather than killing whales. The Japanese coast guard vessel

Fukuyoshi Maru #68 had shadowed the Steve Irwin since January 15,

but was ultimately not able to keep the Sea Shepherds away from the

Nisshin Maru.

Watson believed the whalers would return to Japan with less

than half of their self-assigned quota of 935 minke whales and 50 fin

whales. The Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research had also

planned to kill up to 50 endangered humpback whales, but dropped

this idea due to global opposition.

" Leap year gave us an extra day this month, " Watson e-mailed

at the end of February 2008, " but despite that, we made it to the

end of February without any whales being killed for the last six

days. We are chasing the Japanese in circles and there does not seem

to be any rhyme or reason to what they are doing. They are wasting

fuel and not catching any whales. "

But perhaps the Japanese fleet had more interest in just

being there than in actually killing whales.

" Red ink runs like blood in the ledgers of the whalers, "

observed Sydney Morning Herald reporter Andrew Darby. " In the two

remaining legal commercial whaling countries, Iceland last year shut

down the business for lack of whale meat buyers and Norway closed the

season with a minke whale quota half met, " although the Norwegian

self-designated whaling quota for 2008 remains at the 2007 level of

1,052 whales.

Asahi Shimbun reporter Kenji Oya-mada explained to Japanese

readers who have historically seen little criticism of whaling that

the major Japanese fishing conglomerates abandoned the whaling

industry in 2006. The collectively operated whaling fleet was

transferred to the Institute of Cetacean Research, a government

agency which receives an annual subsidy of about a billion yen. In

fiscal 2006 the ICN also received a billion yen loan from the

Overseas Fishery Cooperation Foundation, a government agency, and

has had trouble making the payments.

" Yet the ICR commissioned a new multibillion-yen catcher ship

for the present season, the third in a decade, " noted Darby.

Joji Morashita, the Japanese fisheries agency's chief

negotiator on whaling, " said that if the principle of treating

wildlife as a sustainable resource was compromised, it would

infringe Japan's right to exploit other fish and animal products, "

summarized Darby. " Or as the business daily Shukan Toyo Keizai was

told, 'If we give an inch on whaling, we will also have to back

down on tuna,' " another issue involving depleted species.

" The Nisshin Maru is 21 years old, has caught fire twice,

has killed three seamen in work accidents, and does not have the

capacity to haul up the bigger whales, or store the whole season's

catch, " Darby continued. " Within the next few years the fisheries

agency will have to decide whether to build a costly replacement. "

Surveying 2,082 Japanese citizens, the Asahi Shimbun

reported 65% support whaling, and that 56% approve of eating whale

meat, including nearly 80% of men older than 40. However, 58% of

Japanese women in their twenties oppose eating whales. Japanese

whale meat consumption has fallen to 30 grams per person per year,

less than an eighth of the volume of 25 years ago.

An Internet survey done by the Nippon Research Centre for

Greenpeace International found that 31% of the 1,051 respondents

favor whaling, down 4% from 2006. About 25% opposed whaling, with

44% undecided. Only 5% acknowledged eating whale meat as often as

" sometimes. "

Eighty-five percent were unaware that Japan hunts whales

within the Southern Ocean Sanctuary designated by the International

Whaling Commission.

" Last month the Institute for Cetacean Research dumped 10

tons of unsold whale meat into a primary school lunch program, "

charged Watson, " trying to get children to develop a taste for whale

flesh and blubber despite the high mercury content in it. Yokohama

children have not eaten whale meat as part of school lunches in 26

years. The ICR still has over 3,000 tons of unsold whale meat left

from last year's hunt. "

Japanese International Whaling Commission delegation chair

Yoshimasa Hayashi told media that Japan would seriously consider

ending high seas whaling if allowed to expand coastal whaling.

" There is a chance of an agreement, " Hayashi said. " It will depend

largely on U.S. leadership to bridge the differences at the IWC. "

Said Watson, " Although we would welcome an end to whaling in

the Southern Ocean, we are opposed to killing whales anywhere, by

anyone, for any reason. "

 

Confrontations

 

The Sea Shepherd pursuit of the Nisshin Maru was interrupted

in early February by a refueling stop at Melbourne. Sixteen

volunteer crew members left the Steve Irwin of February 2, after two

months at sea, replaced by 19 others. Eleven of the original crew

remained aboard for the second voyage, commenced on Valentine's Day.

As the Steve Irwin ran low on fuel toward the end of the

first voyage, crew members Benjamin Potts, 28, of Australia, and

Giles Lane, 35, of Britain, on January 15 boarded the

whale-catcher Yushin Maru #2 with a letter asking the captain to stop

whaling. Held aboard the Yushin Maru for three days, initially tied

to a radar mast, Potts and Lane were eventually transferred to the

Australian Customs patrol vessel Oceanic Viking and returned to the

Steve Irwin.

The Steve Irwin then approached another Japanese ship closely

enough to throw stink bombs on the deck.

" Pottsy and Giles weren't just sitting on their behinds on

the Yushin Maru #2, " Watson later told the Melbourne Age. " We have a

transmitter aboard the ship, " Watson said, with a battery good for

a year, " and the whalers are not going to find it. "

The Japanese whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru had meanwhile

fled into the southern Indian Ocean, trying to escape the Greenpeace

vessel Esperanza, but turned back to refuel the Yushin Maru #2 and

deployed water cannon against Greenpeace campaigners who approached

in speedboats.

While Japanese diplomats demanded that Australia prosecute

the Sea Shepherds, Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith held

talks in Tokyo just as Japan was reported to have resumed killing

whales in the Antarctic Ocean following a two-week halt under

pressure from environmental protesters.

" Australia very strongly believes that Japan should cease

whaling in the Southern Ocean. We are giving careful consideration

to the possibility of taking international legal action in respect of

this matter, " Smith said.

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, inaugurated in

December 2007, in January 2008 sent the Oceanic Viking on a

seven-week mission to gather evidence, after dispatching an A-319

surveillance plane to help the Oceanic Viking find the Japanese

whaling fleet.

The high seas confrontations somewhat upstaged a January 15

Australian Federal Court verdict that the ICR had violated Australian

law by killing whales in the Australian Whale Sanctuary. Ruling in

response to a lawsuit brought by Humane Society International, the

global arm of the Humane Society of the U.S., the court ordered the

ICR to halt further whaling.

But the Australian government initially refused to release

any of the evidence gathered by the Oceanic Viking and two A-319

flights, sought by HSI for use in seeking enforcement orders. On

February 7, however, the Australian government released both video

and still photographs showing " whales being pursued, then shot with

harpoons tipped with explosives, thrashing about in bloodied

Antarctic waters before being winched aboard the Yushin Maru #2, "

and " a mother whale and calf bleeding and slung lifeless in the

slipway of a Japanese whaling vessel, " in the words of London Times

writer Paul Larter.

An ICR statement denied that the whales shown were a mother

and calf. " It is highly likely a mother and calf, " responded

Southern Cross University Whale Research Centre director Peter

Harrison. " They were caught together. " The smaller of the two,

Harrison noted, was " a very young whale, and it is highly unlikely

that she would be associated with anyone other than her mother. "

The Rudd government " is considering using its evidence in

either the Inter-national Court of Justice in The Hague or the

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, " reported Shingo Ito

of Agence France-Presse.

" The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea could be

called upon to issue an injunction to stop the Japanese whalers in as

little as 14 days, " said International Fund for Animal Welfare

representative Tim Stephens.

" The graphic images on our television screens bring home the

reality of whale hunting. This shows that more than ever the

European Union needs to be united in opposing whaling, " said EU

environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.

The Greenpeace vessel Esperanza remained at sea pursuing the

whalers while the Steve Irwin refueled, and returned to Australia

one day after the Steve Irwin set forth again-- an apparent

coincidence, as 30 years of hostility between Watson and Greenpeace

appeared to be undiminished. A Greenpeace cofounder, Watson founded

the Sea Shepherd Conserv-ation Society in 1977, after Greenpeace

rejected confrontational tactics against whalers and sealers, and

eventually withdrew categorical opposition to all whaling and sealing.

The Oceanic Viking returned to port on February 28. As well

as gathering evidence against Japanese whaling inside the Southern

Oceans Whale Sanctuary, the Oceanic Viking is believed to have

documented maritime poaching by two ships from other nations.

While seeking the Japanese whalers in January, the Sea

Shepherds reported finding a Namibian-flagged vessel, the Antalles

Reefer, illegally netting toothfish. " The vessel refused to give a

fishing permit number and threatened the Steve Irwin by reporting

that it was armed, " said a Sea Shepherd press release. " Captain

Paul Watson relayed the information to the Oceanic Viking. "

 

Korean whaling

 

Illegal whaling by South Koreans was exposed in mid-January,

when South Korean police seized more than 50 metric tons of frozen

minke whale meat from two warehouses in the southeastern port of

Ulsan.

" Some 70 people including fishermen, distributors and

operators of 46 whale meat restaurants have been brought in for

questioning, " reported Agence France-Presse.

Explained Agence France-Presse, " Whale meat can be legally

sold in South Korea if the animals were caught by accident in fishing

nets. Fishers report accidentally snaring some 200 whales every

year, " but activists believe up to twice that many are actually

caught.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations.

We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

for free sample, send address.]