• Tight spot: The Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker sails between the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru (left) and the whaling fleet's fuel tanker, the Sun Laurel, as the whalers and militant conservationists clash off Antarctica on Monday.
    Tight spot: The Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker sails between the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru (left) and the whaling fleet's fuel tanker, the Sun Laurel, as the whalers and militant conservationists clash off Antarctica on Monday. | SEA SHEPHERD AUSTRALIA/AFP-JIJI

Sea Shepherd, whalers slam hulls in Antarctic waters

AFP-JIJI

SYDNEY – Japanese whalers and militant conservationists have again been in dangerous clashes off Antarctica, with both sides accusing the other of ramming their vessels.

Veteran antiwhaling campaigner Paul Watson said that on Monday the factory ship Nisshin Maru rammed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s much smaller vessel, the Bob Barker.

But on its website, the Institute of Cetacean Research accused several Sea Shepherd boats of ramming the Nisshin Maru as it tried to refuel with her supply tanker, the Sun Laurel.

“It was five hours of intense confrontation,” Watson said from onboard the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin. “We took up our positions to block their approach to the (fuel tanker) Sun Laurel and they rammed the Bob Barker twice, causing considerable damage, and then they pushed it into the side of the Sun Laurel.”

Watson said the Japanese threw stun grenades and used water cannon on his boat, and damaged another Sea Shepherd vessel, the Sam Simon, but there were no injuries to Sea Shepherd crew.

“It was extremely dangerous,” he said. “I can’t tell you how intimidating it is to have a 12,000-ton ship coming at you and trying to slam into the side of you.

“Their contention that we rammed them is just ludicrous. We would just bounce off them.”

The institute claimed the whalers were “again subject to sabotage by the Sea Shepherd ships Steve Irwin, Bob Barker and Sam Simon.”

“During their obstruction to refuelling operations the Sea Shepherd vessels rammed into . . . the Nisshin Maru and the supply tanker,” it said. “During the attack, the Nisshin Maru used her water pump as a preventive measure to make Sea Shepherd vessels refrain from further approaching and repeatedly broadcast a warning message to stop them.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/StephenKent1 Stephen Kent

    I was absolutely disgusted when I heard that money had been taken from the funds for rebuilding the Tohoku area affected by the earthquake to pay for this loss making enterprise that is supposed to represent a “tradition”. If it wouldn’t cause a massive backlash I would quite happily donate money to Sea Shepherd to purchase torpedoes.

  • http://www.facebook.com/charles.f.sommers Charles F. Sommers

    I ate whale meat fifty years ago when I lived in Japan for most of the decade of the 60s. It was a popular food then because people were not aware of the contaminants it contained and it was inexpensive.

    Today is a different story, the Japanese government is aware of the high level of PCBs and mercury contained in both whale and dolphin flesh. Enjoy your whale bacon and sashimi and keep your health insurance current.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Karl-Malloy/100002020385349 Karl Malloy

    Dr Ray Gambell, former head of International Whaling
    Commission, the commission whose treaty banned commercial whaling: I
    have to say at the outset that Japan is not doing anything illegal by catching
    the whales that it does and it is acting legally within the terms of the
    Convention that we operate. One of the things that we are working on at the
    present time is inspection and international observer programmes that will have
    oversight of any whaling which is under IWC control, to make sure that all
    regulations are followed covering areas such as size and species.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Karl-Malloy/100002020385349 Karl Malloy

    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, Chief Judge Kozinski writing the unanimous opinion: “You don’t need a peg leg or an eye patch. When you ram ships; hurl glass containers of acid; drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders; launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate, no matter how high-minded you believe your purpose to be…The preliminary injunction we issued on December 17, 2012, Inst. of Cetacean Research v. Sea Shepherd
    Conservation Soc’y, 702 F.3d 573 (9th Cir. 2012), will remain in effect until
    further order of this court.”

    From the injunction: “In no event shall defendants [SSCS] approach plaintiffs [Japan ICR] any closer than 500 yards when defendants are navigating on the open sea.”

  • Wild West

    Obvious propaganda to demonize opposition to the slaughter of whaling by the aggressive well armed wealthy and powerful Nippon whaling interests.

  • http://www.facebook.com/eelco.eggen Eelco Eggen

    The Bob Barker is there because the people on it believe that they can save the world’s whale population. And that’s exactly what they’re doing. If nobody had cared about the whales, they probably would have gone extinct by now.

  • WithMalice

    Aaaah… so as long as it tastes good, anything is justifiable?
    You’re part of the problem Takahashi. Part of the reason the planet’s falling to pieces underneath our feet.

Photos

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Tight spot: The Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker sails between the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru (left) and the whaling fleet's fuel tanker, the Sun Laurel, as the whalers and militant conservationists clash off Antarctica on Monday. | SEA SHEPHERD AUSTRALIA/AFP-JIJI

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