Sea Shepherd News

Australian Senate Wants Immediate Action on Whaling

The Australian Senate recently passed a motion by Greens Senator Rachael Siewert calling on the Government to set a timetable for the commencement of International legal action and also to send a vessel down to monitor the Japanese whaling activity.

"Australians do not want another summer to go by with hundreds of whales slaughtered under the guise of Japanese 'scientific research," said Siewart. "Minister Garrett has been quick to defend the Government's inaction on whaling, saying he only promised to give 'careful and serious consideration to the options for potential legal action'. How many more years do the Australian public have to wait for the Ministers' decision?  Diplomacy will not save any whales this summer, just as it has failed in the last few years," she concluded.

This year Sea Shepherd will be going to the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary to defend the Whales from Japanese harpoons alone.  It appears that the Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett feel that the majority of the whaling will take place in the New Zealand search and rescue area of the Antarctic and that Australia has no responsibility in this matter.

"Whales don't recognize artificial boundaries in the ocean and the Japanese harpoons are very likely to follow them into Australian Antarctic waters," said Sea Shepherd Australia board member, Jonny Vasic.  "The whales are down there to feed their young in the krill rich waters of Antarctica.  The Japanese will once again be targeting nearly a thousand whales including 50 endangered Fin whales."

Captain Paul Watson Responds to Greenpeace Quotes in International Herald Tribune

Mark McDonald of The International Herald Tribune ran an excellent article titled Japanese whaler and ecologists set sail for annual confrontation.  He also interviewed Steve Shallhorn of Greenpeace.  Captain Paul Watson responds to Mr. Shallhorn's comments about Sea Shepherd in the article.

Japanese whaler and ecologists set sail for annual confrontation

By Mark McDonald

Friday, November 21, 2008

International Herald Tribune:

(With editorial comments by Captain Paul Watson)

HONG KONG: Quietly, without the usual bon voyage fanfare and Buddhist blessings, a Japanese whaling ship set sail this week on its yearly hunt for the great whales of the Southern Ocean. If the hunting is good, the Nisshin Maru will haul in more than 1,000 whales.

Meanwhile, at the Rivergate Marina in Brisbane, Australia, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is preparing its own ship, the Steve Irwin, for its annual oceangoing battle with the Japanese whaler.

Past confrontations have been dramatic, dangerous, even violent. There have been collisions and rammings, forced boardings, the fouling of propellers, the firing of stink bombs and stun grenades, even allegations of gunplay.

Sea Shepherd, with a crew that includes the American actress Daryl Hannah, promises big surprises and new tactics for the Japanese fleet. But the group whose members have been labeled eco-terrorists won't have any backup this year: For the first time in four years, Greenpeace is not sending a ship to help harass the whalers.

That infuriates Paul Watson, the Sea Shepherd founder and the captain of the Steve Irwin. In a telephone interview Friday from Brisbane, he called Greenpeace "the Avon ladies of the environmental movement."

"I've offered to work with them over and over," said Watson, one of the original founders of Greenpeace in the early 1970s who then parted ways with the group in 1978. "I call them 'the other whaling industry.' They've raised millions of dollars off the whales for this campaign - and now they're not sending a boat. They should be ashamed."

Japanese Defenses on Whaling Are Cracking

Behind Japan's outspoken and irrational defense of whaling there is an undercurrent of dissent within the Japanese establishment.

This week the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Tomohiko Taniguchi,  the official voice of Japan for the last three years has expressed his views on Japan's controversial whaling activities.

Taniguchi was the voice for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo. His role was to speak to the international media every day. He reports that of the hundreds of matters he had to deal with, that the one he dreaded most was defending Japanese whaling programs. It was part of his job to defend official policy.

"I was being summoned by CNN, BBC and ABC on this issue far more than any other issue," Taniguchi says. "I hated this issue because there's no point in Japan sticking to its position."

Today Taniguchi is an adviser to Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs. But, since July, he is no longer an employed official, so he is free to speak his mind. And he does.

At the same time this may be officially Japan feeling the waters using Taniguchi's big toe.

"The Japanese whaling industry generates revenues of 7.5 billion yen a  year, which is $120 million at the current exchange rate. It's tiny."

Japan's economy, the world's second biggest, has an annual output of 515 trillion yen or $8.2 trillion. So whaling accounts for 0.0014 per cent of the national economy. Or less than one-tenth the value of the country's annual market for toothbrushes.

And the total number of people who derive a living from whaling, including dependents, is between one and several thousands in a country of 130 million.

"Japan has nil national interest in the whaling industry," Taniguchi continues," The stake for Japan is near zero. If Australians criticise the Japanese auto industry, Japan must do everything possible to  protect the auto industry. This is not the auto industry."