And the Greenpeace activists have blogged about the Whalers, willing to kill at any cost.Two Greenpeace ships, the Arctic Sunrise and Esperanza, have for weeks been harassing Japanese boats as they hunt for 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales that Japan says are needed for scientific research.
International Whaling Commission rules permit the research hunt, but Australia and other anti-whaling countries say it is really commercial whaling in disguise. The meat collected is later sold in Japan.
Last week, the Arctic Sunrise collided with whaling factory ship the Nisshin Maru, damaging both vessels but causing no injuries. Both sides blamed one another for the crash.
Then late Saturday, Canadian activist Texas Constantine was thrown out of a small inflatable boat that had been manoeuvring between a harpooner and a minke whale and spent several minutes in the icy waters before being hauled back on board.
"We were out defending the whales. We had been out there for about an hour. I was driving our boat and we were in a good position and the whaler fired its harpoon," Constantine said in a statement.
"All of a sudden the harpoon line came down on us trapping us between the whale and the catcher," he said.
"The line came tight at that point and threw me from the boat into the water. It was a few minutes before our boat was able to come over and pick me up out of the water."
14 January 2006
Would you kill, to kill a whale
by Andrew, onboard the Esperanza
I'm asking a serious question here of the whalers. "Would you kill a person to kill a whale?" Because that is what it is down to here in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The reports and video from the Arctic Sunrise boat crew makes that abundantly clear. Meanwhile, out in the Billy G. we had our own close firing - not as menacing as the behaviour the Arctic Sunrise folks saw, but still irresponsibly close.
©Greenpeace/Davison
Yushin Maru No.2I've never seen anything like this. It's my third trip to down here, and I can only attribute the whalers' behaviour to two things - the fact that they've more than doubled the number of whales they want to kill, and that we're being more effective then ever before at non-violently protecting these whales from the harpoon.
It's worth pointing out that as Greenpeace activists we've chosen to use peaceful tactics - to not put the whalers' safety at risk, no matter what. We also each choose to put ourselves in harms way. But the whaler with the gun also has to make a choice about whether to pull that trigger. For the safety of my crewmates - I hope he doesn't make the wrong one.
If you know anyone working on the whaling ships, maybe ask them to ask themselves, "If you don't shoot, what is the worst that could happen? If you do pull that trigger, what is the worst possible outcome then? Which would you rather live with?"
I'll admit, I'm partly asking this for selfish reasons. Because that guy in the Greenpeace boat. That's going to be me.
Protesters join forces against whaling
Something about whales
Paul Watson: Chasing the whalers - part 6
Very little coverage has been given to this campaign in the Canadian media, and when they finally do, on the CTV news, this is what they run;Protest may hurt anti-whaling campaign: Australia
Do I detect some bias here? The real story is that it is Canadians battling the Japanese trawlers. Which is dangerous business indeed. I guess whale's aren't as cute as seals, so we will have to wait for the media to cover the Seal Hunt protests. Out of sight out of mind seems to be the policy for covering environmental clashes in the Canadian media.
Or maybe it's cause the Japanese are out business partners, you know Toyota, Honda and now; Japan looks to oil sands to ease reliance on Middle East
See my
Confrontation on the High Seas
Real Junk Science
Tags
endangered species
environment
Japan
Whales
Greenpeace
Junk Science
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