I may not agree with the japanese “research” claim, but that is no reason why we should put ourselves or others on the line. the men on the japanese boats are just doing their job, they need to make a living too you know. So if the Activists want to do something maybe they should try attacking the managers of these business. rather than his men who simply get payed to do it!!!

Sea Shepherd heading to the Mediterranean to protect tuna
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100124/local/sea-shepherd-heading-to-the-mediterranean-to-protect-tuna

They really hate Japan…and Sushi?

There are codes, customs and international treaties which governments choose to recognise, yes, including “laws of the sea” and the like. But the only thing that makes any of these codes, customs or treaties legitimate is the fact that particular governments choose to abide by them – because those governments recognise that doing so is in their own national interest.

Virtually every sea-going power understands that piracy is a threat to its own national interest (economically as well as militarily) so nations stand together against piracy. The rest of it is details handled by agreements.

Japan and Norway choose not to recognise agreements made that restrict or ban whaling. As long as those two countries’ vessels are not whaling within territorial waters of nations who do ban the practice, they can do whatever they want.

The self-limiting factor is when actions at sea give rise to an international incident. Nothing else.

I think it’s clear Japanese whalers are using research as a facade for an activity that is by essence, illegal.

Actually the various organizations and documents that regulate the legality of such actions are not so black and white. I agree it almost certainly isn’t true “research”, but there is no specific clause that outlaws whale hunting entirely.

The specific documents you need to look for are:
- “The Antarctic Treaty System”
- “The Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species”
- “The International Convention on the Regulation of
Whaling”
- “United Nations Charter on Nature”
- “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”

Have a look and tell me if you find something that states Japan is unmistakably engaged in criminal activity.

Keep in mind, it’s possible that Japan could have broken territorial laws in non-international waters, but those would be handled per-incidence, and wouldn’t criminalize Japan’s actions on-the-whole.

The sad thing about Sea Shepherd is that it would be seemingly easy to fix the obscurities in the aforementioned documents, which would then indeed criminalize Japan’s actions. But reviewing papers and submitting corrections doesn’t pull your supporters emotional strings (and bring in millions of dollars in donations) quite like a good boat chase.

In all seriousness, if you really want to help the whales, you should demand those documents be revised. Supporting SSCS will get you nowhere, since Japan will continue to replace whaling ships as long as they are technically not doing anything illegal.

Section II (for vessels in sight of one another)
13. Overtaking
Notwithstanding anything contained in part B, sections I and II, an overtaking vessel must keep well clear of the vessel being overtaken.

A good Admiralty lawyer would take a pile of money from Sea Shepherd and it’s company.

The following data values are taken from the whales caught, which are used in the establishing of accurate population estimates per pod: 1. Maturity, 2. Age, 3. Pregnancy state, 4. Pregnancy rate, 5. Accurate length and weight, 6. Eating habits, 7. Accumulation of toxins
I find it hard to imagine how concrete data of these sorts can be taken from just watching them.
If there are non-lethal and economically feasible catch-and-release methods for whales that can generate the above data, I’m pretty confident Japan will at least give it a thought.

This is the definition of commercialism, no?

Wanna bet?

I meant “Fishing can be used as a verb to describe the catch of things other than just fish.”

And no I’m not siding with Sea Shepherd. But if you want to go fishing for boots there is nothing wrong with it. It’s an expression, not everything is literal. So yes, someone can go fishing for mammals if they so please.

Another thing that’s been bothering me is how baker managed to even come up with that number, 827? That’s a lot of meat he has to buy for that DNA signatures or whatnot. Don’t quite believe it yet.

I’m not entirely sure why they abandoned attacking Norway. Perhaps it’s because European nations are more politically savvy than Japan, or perhaps it’s because the Dutch don’t want to make enemies with their neighbors.

Sea Shepherd has also tried to interfere with seal killing in Canada, only to be rammed by the Coast Guard until they left the premises.

In my opinion, Sea Shepherd is hardcore about whales because Paul Watson has found a niche where he can live and support his radical enviro-terrorism. There are enough volunteers in the US and Europe, and Australia has somehow turned protecting whales into a national symbol that Sea Shepherd has safe havens and sympathizers that let them continue to do these sorts of things. Their latest TV show on Animal Planet doesn’t help the matter.

Now, why is this?

One thing is for sure, no way in this universe the South Korean whalers would stand for any of this petty nonsense and harrassment from green freaks or any other organization. They’d ram the greenies FIRST and ask questions later. Proof yet that these greenie “warriors” are all bark and no substance, kind of like the bully that picks on the smallest and weakest kid that will never fight back.

Lames.

In the process they have become an open laughing stock of not only the conservation world but of the general public as well. What started with last summers expose on South Park has become a full blown online rebellion against staged reality television under the increasingly thin guise of protecting and saving wildlife.

By any metric including Sea Shepherds own Paul Watson they are losing the media battle for the hearts and minds of a non-radicalized public.

Watson recently posted a long winded and far fetched explanation for why the worlds online comment media is not buying into his spoon fed and faked Whale Wars spectaculars, such as the ill fated “Watson Was Shot” (Whale Wars Season One) and this years alleged ramming of the Ady Gil.

Paul Watson

“One of the most insidious and underhanded attacks has been the ability of the Japanese whaling industry to use cyber warfare. We have reason to believe that they have infiltrated internet social forums and websites with a well funded campaign of disinformation and strategies designed to undermine our morale and erode our support with a barrage of lies, ad hominem attacks, character assassination, and cyber bullying.”

The most obvious explanation for Watson’s pseudo Clive Barker analysis? The public is no longer buying into patently faked Sea Shepherd media. Sea Shepherd has grossly underestimated its audience and their intelligence.

Therein lies the problem. Across the Internet and beyond Western audiences are tuning out of the conservation message of whaling. Anti-whaling efforts have become an entertainment vehicle, not conservation, and Sea Shepherd is to blame for this bizarre shift in consciousness.

If Western watchers of these seasonal media antics are not buying into them, where are Eastern sympathies for Japans ongoing whaling efforts?

Smart Conservation People

There are some undoubtedly smart, dedicated people who work with Sea Shepherd, and to ignore them would be wrong. Like pirate vessels of old, the captains role as master and commander of his vessel was a “performance based job.” Pirate crews had the right to depose their captain if he failed to deliver.

We would like to suggest that happens now.

Over the past decades Paul Watson alone has managed to stubbornly apply a leisure suit wearing 1970′s strategy to every “save the” campaign he has put forth. Today, twenty plus years later, whales are still being killed, seals harvested, and sharks taken all over the world.

Meanwhile in just the past two years Watson has lost close to 4 million dollars in donor money, vessels and equipment. Canadian authorities recently sold his impounded vessel the Farley Mowat at auction and now the Ady Gil lies at the bottom of the sea. Not to mention the untold gallons of diesel and oil spilled into the pristine Antarctic, trying to save whales – yet again.

Paul Watson’s continual resetting of eco goals is one indication that even he, in his most private moments, realizes his organization is failing to effect any real and lasting changes. Over the years he has been quoted as saying his goal is to “stop whaling.” That soon changed to “limit the numbers of whales killed,” and today Watson’s new and fully open ended commitment to whales suggests that his goals are to “bankrupt the whalers.” With that one statement Watson has slyly committed Sea Shepherd and its radicalized followers to another 20-30 years of ineffective media staging.

This years sinking of the Ady Gil was tantamount to a group of camera laden PETA protesters ramming a car into the side of a meat processing plant…and then blaming the plant for attempted murder.

The conservation world is becoming tarnished by a small group of increasing irrelevant media event stagers who have redefined the meaning of metric based conservation to reality entertainment.

Clearly, the public has had enough. What is needed now is leadership change from within.

Which begs the question, are there any real leaders within the Sea Shepherd ranks?

Likewise, the proper way for Japan to deal with Sea Shepherd is to bring in destroyer escort/support and – when necessary – defend their factory ships by SINKING the SS fleet. Ramming vessels is hardly a deterrent in war.

Where is the Japanese Navy or Coast Guard?

While I think that we can debate the ethics of whaling as a practice, this story is about a ship ramming another ship. I think we can all agree that when a ship attacks another ship with ramming, lasers, and acid, it is really unacceptable. These Sea Shepard people are really nasty and out of line.

I am really impressed with how peaceful and restrained the Japanese are being. I’m sure they are pissed and want to whup some butt but they are holding back and really taking a lot of abuse from these rude westerners.

Would any other country be so peaceable? I don’t think so.

Even with that said, I think that enough is enough. The Japanese navy needs to put an end to this before some Japanese fisherman gets killed. This is not a game and this needs to stop.

If a couple of Japanese cruisers went out there and put a couple rounds across the bow of that Sea Shepard boat it might make them wake up to the dangerous nature of what they are doing.

And when you think about it, why should we expect the Sea Shepard group to act differently? They didn’t pay for the boat. They don’t care what happens to it. They just got some elderly celebrity to fund their organization and then they start smashing up all their hyper-expensive boats. I guess they will just go get another 20 million dollars from some other celebrities when these boats are smashed.

What @ssholes.

By their actions alone, nothing else needs to said. Just because they don’t like eating whales, doesn’t mean that eating whales is morally wrong?

Maybe the Japanese should ‘demand’ that Australians, New Zealanders, American and others to stop eating animals and eat Natto gohan every day. Afterall the cows feel pain when they die and they definitely do not say, please kill me so you can satify your hunger.

Is it why those governments are anti-whaling, is because they want to export more beef to Japan? Just as they claim reaserch is a disguise to eat whales, anti- whaling based soley on emotion, instead of scientific data is an excuse to demand Japan to buy more beef.

You can decide for yourself who is right.

Even though they said from the start they will continue to kill whales (which Japan should have said the same thing), they are not criticized. I wonder why?

Don’t try to say they objected in the beginning. It doesn’t matter, they are killing whales and that’s the bottom line.

You can steal a car or an onigiri, no matter what you call it, it’s stealing.

The English site of the Institute of Cetacean Research is rather hard to navigate but I did find these, so these should be a start.

Scientific papers submitted to the JARPA REVIEW meeting called by the International Whaling Commission (2006)
http://www.icrwhale.org/JARPAReview3.htm

Scientific papers submitted to the JARPN REVIEW meeting called by the International Whaling Commission (2000)
http://www.icrwhale.org/JARPNReview2.htm

JARPA is simply Japan’s research in the Antarctic, and likewise JARPN is Japan’s research in the Western north Pacific.

I try to think objectively, and I have not the slightest emotional attachment to whales, BUT if you say whaling for commercial and whaling for research purposes are not mutually exclusive you’re implying that there is research going on that validates the amount of whales being killed, before they get shipped off to commercial warehouses. If this is the case… where are the research papers that quote using a population sample of whales anything close to the amount being killed?

Futhermore, to be honest I don’t think Japanese people would be buying whale offcuts from research facilities.

(sorry to have strayed the topic even further from the actual incident cited in the post).

Yet.

I wonder if this particular felon-ecoterrorist Paul Watson likes getting “interviewed” with a Class II laser device aimed squarely at his retinas. And remember, in law enforcement circles, the word “interrogation” does not exist.

This, no matter what I may be up to–Whaling, drug running, “research”, carrying cadmium and lead based toys from China to America, carrying grain to ungrateful Somalis, or whathaveyou.

It’s simple self defense.

The MSDF did once chase down, open fire with cannons, and sink a suspected (but not confirmed) North Korean spy infiltration boat with up to 20 armed cruisers outside of the Japanese EEZ and territorial waters (probably violating international maritime law).
So I have to wonder if the revocation of the Dutch registration of the SS ships will open the path to some fresh cans of whoopass and worms being opened up in the Antarctic seas …

Typical right wingers will never learn

Anyway, these pirates are probably spend the off-season marching in protest rallies demanding Bush/Cheney/Obama be jailed for “war crimes”.

Their hypocrisy (and stupidity) knows no bounds.

Plus it’s just counter-productive. Making a documentary like “The Cove” is actually effective.

World Wildlife Federation wonder what they think? Notice its just these guys alone who don’t like whaling? There’s gotta be a motive behind it for sure

OK here we go, why aint nobody against Shark meat for example? Many sharks being captured for food purposes lately
Western related cultures eat meat from cows, people in India do not

But anyway something is not right here, as someone said if they are allowed to do it then its OK

In the first video, am I the only that actually hear the Sea Sheperds crew LAUGH after being “rammed”?
I might be out of my mind but they really don’t seemed scared of being hit before it happens while it’s clear their ship is going in a straight line, aiming for the Japanese ship that tries to avoid them at the last second, and after that they f*** laugh??

To me it’s clear that the agressor is once again the Sea Sheperds crew and they are clearly happy with being hit and endangering their own lives.

They call themselves pirates, they endanger their lives and those of the Japanese whalers, they act without permission, they claim to be at war, they delibarately ramm other’s people ships while laughing out loud, and THEY DARE TO CLAIM BEING THE VICTIMS??!!

Something is wrong in this picture…

You want to change things? Take the hard road and get inside the system and change it from within. Yes, this takes time, money, education, intelligence, etc, but this sort of violent protest is absolutely useless. If they are legally allowed to do it, and can make a profit, they will continue.

Whaling (or fishing) and research aren’t mutually exclusive, though pretending it is may lend greater strength to the emotional appeal to outrage.

Watson and SSCS are crying about getting bumped/rammed at sea in a game that they started last year. Look at the decals of rammed ships that Watson so proudly displays on the side of his ship, the Steve Irwin. Watson began this game, I urge him to end it before he kills someone.

If the purpose of a ban on whaling was to help restore the whale populations to sustainable levels, and if some of those populations have indeed rebounded, then is it still unreasonable to perform some level of commercial whaling?

Yet, somehow I doubt there is any population level at which Greenpeace will suddenly decide that commercial whaling is acceptable.