Sea Shepherd Exploits & Whale Pet Food Denial
There is a lot of whaling news kicking about at the moment. Possibly due to a combination of the current push to further enable whaling and possibly due to the media attention that Sea Shepherd are garnering - and yes, they even have managed to earn themselvs the label of ‘terrorist’!
Japanese whalers and a group of self-styled environmental “pirates” called a temporary truce today to save the lives of two activists who spent seven hours adrift in the freezing waters of the Southern Ocean.
A dinghy carrying the two campaigners from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society got lost in fog during a violent confrontation with the Nisshin Maru, a Japanese factory ship which is hunting a thousand whales in the name of “scientific research”.
It was the latest incident in an increasingly dangerous struggle being fought in the watery wilderness of the Antarctic.
Sea Shepherd dinghies attempted to bolt metal plates over outlets in the hull of the Japanese ship, to prevent the outflow of the blood of butchered whales. The Japanese government said that two sailors suffered minor injuries after being struck or splashed in the eyes by canisters of butyric acid, a harmless but noxious “stink bomb” fired from the anti-whaling ship.
“We wanted to remind them what rotting whale flesh smells like,” Jonny Vasic, the international director of Sea Shepherd, told The Times by satellite telephone from the ship, Robert Hunter.
“When they see us, they run, and when they’re on the run they can’t kill whales. Whales are living, not dying, when we are around.”
The two activists got lost in fog after their satellite navigation and radio equipment failed. Sea Shepherd called off their “action” and began to search for the missing dinghy, with the help of the Nisshin Maru. The two men, an Australian and an American, were found unharmed after seven hours. They later said they had tied their boat to an iceberg for protection from icy winds and to stop them drifting away.
Sea Shepherd is lead by Paul Watson, a founder of Greenpeace who broke away to form his own more radical group. Its confrontational and sometimes violent tactics are opposed even by those who denounce Japan’s whaling programme, such as Greenpeace and the governments of Australia and New Zealand.
“It really puts the cause of conservation backwards,” Ian Campbell, the Australian environment minister, said last month. “I implore Captain Watson to comply with the law of the sea and not do anything to put at risk other vessels on the high seas and therefore human life.”
The flagship, Farley Mowat, is equipped with a “hydraulic can opener” which could seriously damage the hull of another vessel. Hideki Moronuki of the Japan Fisheries Agency said: “This accident caused by Sea Shepard is an illegal act and very dangerous not only for the Japanese fleet but for themselves.
“They are threatening people’s lives. We strongly protest and request them to stop immediately. Their conduct is that of pirates – we call them ’Eco-Terrorists’.”
Sea Shepherd justifies its actions with the claim that the Japanese are themselves breaking the law by hunting endangered whales. The Nisshin Maru carries out its hunt in the name of scientific research, but almost all the 1000 animals targeted this year will find their way on to the commercial market.
“It’s like taking the gun out of the hands of a bank robber, or stopping an ivory poacher,” said Mr Vasic. “These are criminals perpetrating illegal acts.”
Today’s confrontation was the climax to a five-week chase in which two Sea Shepherd vessels, the Farley Mowat and Robert Hunter, attempted to find the Japanese whalers in millions of square miles of ocean. Sea Shepherd claims that the Japanese Government has been tracking its two boats using satellite imagery and passing on the information to the whalers to help them evade detection.
In desperation, the organisation offered to pay US $25,000 to any member of the Australian or New Zealand military who leaked the co-ordinates of the fleet. Both countries have been tracking the Japanese fleet, and last week New Zealand evacuated a sick whaler by helicopter.
But the organisation says that it will not be paying out the reward, having found the whalers yesterday through its own efforts. “After five weeks it was getting very discouraging,” said Mr Vasic. “We had a hunch where they were based on past experience, and we hid out in an ice field where it’s difficult for them to track us because they can’t identify the wake.”
To complicate matters further, a ship owned by Greenpeace is also making its way towards the area, having been given the co-ordinates by Sea Shepherd.
The two Sea Shepherd votes are literally pirate vessels, having been struck off the shipping register of the countries under whose flags they were sailing. The government of Belize deregistered the Farley Mowat last month, and the British authorities are in the process of striking off the Robert Hunter.
Under the law of the sea, unflagged vessels can be boarded and seized and their crews arrested.
Japanese scientists have reacted angrily to media reports that surplus whale meat is being sold as pet food.
A UK conservation group said last week that Japan’s research programme was landing so many whales, unwanted meat was being turned into dog food.
But the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) in Tokyo said less than 100kg of a species not covered by a global ban was sold to a pet food manufacturer.
The ICR said Japan does not have a glut of whale meat.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the ICR’s director general criticised claims made by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) and the media’s reporting of them.
“This is an indictment on western media who do not question the information they receive on whaling and instead further reinforce falsehoods and wrong assumptions,” said Dr Hiroshi Hatanaka.
The angry response follows widespread coverage of WDCS findings that surplus whale meat was ending up as pet food.
At the time, Mark Simmonds, director of science at WDCS, said: “We have heard many arguments from Japan over the years about why whaling is necessary to them, but they have never stated that they needed to kill whales to feed their dogs.”
Dr Hatanaka said the meat in question was less than 100kg of small intestine from Baird’s beaked whale, a creature not regulated by the global ban, or part of the ICR’s research programme.
“To suggest that fine cuts of whale meat from Japan’s research programmes are being turned into pet food because Japan has a glut of it is not true.”
A global moratorium on commercial hunting of “great whales”, including the blue, sei and Bryde’s, has been in place since the 1980s.
But hunting them for “scientific research” is permitted under the rules of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
The hunting is condemned by most conservation groups on the grounds that it is inhumane, unnecessary and may harm fragile populations.
In addition, IWC regulations cover a minority of cetacean species, and the Baird’s beaked whale is one which Japan maintains is outside its remit.
Hunting for science
Where great whales are concerned, Japan and Iceland run scientific programmes hunting predominantly minkes, while Norway lodged a formal objection to the moratorium and maintains an openly commercial operation.
A number of indigenous peoples are also allowed to hunt under tight restrictions.
The sheer volume of Japan’s operations has made it the principal target for the wrath of conservation groups.
It latest scientific programme, JARPA-2, will remove 935 minkes and 10 fin whales each year; while its other programme JARPN takes 100 sei whales, 100 minkes, 50 Bryde’s whales and five sperm whales annually from the north Pacific.
The IWC obliges countries practising scientific whaling to process what they catch, and the meat from Japan’s programmes has always found its way into restaurants.
Last year, it initiated a scheme to distribute whale meat to schools, and a fast-food chain began selling whale burgers.
The WDCS says demand from Japan’s human population is running some way behind the recently expanded supply.
The conservation group quotes research showing that the price of meat from Bryde’s whales has halved over the last five years, with other species falling as well.
“With the new proposal, Japan will increase its annual take… to levels approaching the annual commercial quotas for Antarctic minke whales that were in place prior to the moratorium,” they declared.
In January a group of 17 countries, including the UK, mounted a formal diplomatic protest.
“The UK is totally opposed to any activity that undermines the present moratorium on commercial whaling,” said Britain’s fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw at the time.
“We urge Japan to reconsider its position and end this unjustified and unnecessary slaughter which is regarded by many countries and their public as a means to bypass the IWC moratorium.”
Japan maintains that hunting is part of its cultural heritage, which other nations have no right to condemn.
