Sea Shepherd 'pirates' set to take on whalers

November 27, 2007

2007/11/26/1196036811518.html?s_cid=rss_world

Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Ben Schneiders

November 27, 2007

IT TAKES a certain type of courage â€” or maybe even a lack of concern for your

own life and those of others â€” to ram a Japanese whaling ship, thousands of

kilometres from land in the freezing Southern Ocean.

But that is what the crew of the Robert Hunter, a former Scottish fisheries

boat, may do when it leaves Melbourne's Docklands in the coming days.

The 39-strong crew are part of the now yearly mission from the Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society that tries to stop the whale hunt or at least reduce the

number of whales killed by the Japanese.

First officer Peter Hammarstedt, a Swede, said he would not reveal the group's

tactics but that it hoped to head off the whalers so as to thwart the Japanese

plan to kill about 1000 whales in the Southern Ocean in the coming months.

Mr Hammarstedt, who turns 23 next week, has been part of the missions for more

than four years â€” or, as he joked, since he was " old enough " to do it. Not for

him the Greenpeace approach, which he derided as " stuffing envelopes " . He hoped

instead to " push the envelope " .

With their Jolly Roger fluttering in the wind, the Sea Shepherd crew â€” who

come from as far afield as Canada, Britain, the US, South Africa and Australia

â€” are proud of their aggressive tactics, which they justify as legal and

necessary due to the failure of others to protect the whales.

Mr Hammarstedt said it was not risking his life that concerned him, but the

lives of the whales.

In the 1980s Sea Shepherd scuttled Icelandic whaling ships in Reykjavik harbour.

In recent years, its boats have rammed and been rammed by Japan's whalers.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius

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