Sea Shepherd to end yearly face off with Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters

[webfact]

Sea Shepherd to end yearly face off with Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters

By Asian Correspondent Staff 

 

ANTI-WHALING activist group Sea Shepherd has announced it will permanently abandon its annual badgering of Japanese whaling ships in the Southern Ocean, citing Japan’s use of “military grade technology.”

 

In a blog post on Sunday, Sea Shepherd’s founder Captain Paul Watson wrote that Japan had passed new anti-terrorism laws specifically designed to condemn Sea Shepherd’s tactics, and that the country had threatened to send their military to defend its “illegal whaling activities.”

 

“The Japanese whalers not only have all the resources and subsidies their government can provide, they also have the powerful political backing of a major economic super-power,” he said, adding that the governments of Australia, New Zealand and United States were “hostile” towards Sea Shepherd.

 

Full story: https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/08/sea-shepherd-end-yearly-face-off-japanese-whalers-antarctic-waters/

 

-- ASIAN CORRESPONDENT 2017-08-29

[Credo]

The Sea Shepard needs to up it's ante.   Perhaps they could fly the NK flag and see if that scares the Japanese.   

[chrisinth]

I remember watching quite a few episodes of the series that were made of this and being amazed that nobody was killed during the filming. The main reason I watched it was that I spent 8 years in total serving on ships (RN Island class patrol vessels) exactly like the original one in the series, ironically on fishery protection duties. I was one of the boat cox'ns involved in boarding operations and I can safely say that every evolution they were involved in (on film) concerning their sea-riders (small boats) was off the scale in terms of danger as far as launch & recovery was concerned.

 

Although they did bring the attention of the whaling by the Japanese to the rest of the world, what they were doing was really wrong IMO. In my view they needed to know that international waters work two ways, if they resorted to harassment by trying to foul propellers by draglines or throwing chemicals onto the decks of ships and get away with it, then they should expect retaliation and accept that instead of spitting the dummy every time their whaling boats took defensive/offensive measures.

 

That said, I would have loved just one trip down south with them.................. 

[Baerboxer]

Disgraceful that Japan sticks to fingers up to the ICJ and takes the piss like this.

 

And because it's a close ally, i.e. lap dog of the US bloc, no one says anything.

 

Whales are warm blooded sensitive intelligent mammals. Unlike the unspeakable scum hunting them. 

 

 

[dick dasterdly]

Depressing news, but not suprising .

 

The whalers are now free to continue to kill whales for profit - and pretend its 'research'.

 

And as per Baerboxer's post - the International 'community' have made it clear they will do nothing to stop the pretense.....

[BuaBS]

The Sea Shepherd people are courageous , but they have to use better tactics like covert operations on Whalers still in harbors , sinking them.

But let's not forget that it's not just the japanese , norway is just as bad , but they don't even get mentioned.

[ChiangMaiLightning2143]

I believe overseas whaling is wrong. Greenpeace terrorism and piracy is also wrong. I feel strongly that it should be left to the legitimate Navies of the world under UN authority to blow these ships out of the water. The Japanese would then have no choice but to stop pointless slaughter of whales.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[BuaBS]

5 hours ago, ChiangMaiLightning2143 said:

I believe overseas whaling is wrong. Greenpeace terrorism and piracy is also wrong. I feel strongly that it should be left to the legitimate Navies of the world under UN authority to blow these ships out of the water. The Japanese would then have no choice but to stop pointless slaughter of whales.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 

Yes but they are not lifting a finger , so it's up to Greenpeace.  A sub sinking japanese ship deep in south pacific would work , but don't think that would work in the north atlantic , sinking norway whalers.

[Skeptic7]

Bad & Sad news indeed. Captain Watson and all his crew(s) over the years are heroes of the highest regard whom have prevented the slaughter of hundreds...perhaps thousands...of whales. 

 

Japan also hosts an annual cetacean slaughter every year (predominantly dolphin, but also pilot whales), where entire pods of these wonderful sea creatures are herded into a cove, netted and brutally murdered with handheld harpoons. 

 

Watch the documentary "The Cove" for an eye-popping and heart breaking reality of humans at their cruelest. The film has won more than a dozen awards, including The Oscar (Academy Award) for Best Documentary 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[halloween]

22 hours ago, chrisinth said:

I remember watching quite a few episodes of the series that were made of this and being amazed that nobody was killed during the filming. The main reason I watched it was that I spent 8 years in total serving on ships (RN Island class patrol vessels) exactly like the original one in the series, ironically on fishery protection duties. I was one of the boat cox'ns involved in boarding operations and I can safely say that every evolution they were involved in (on film) concerning their sea-riders (small boats) was off the scale in terms of danger as far as launch & recovery was concerned.

 

Although they did bring the attention of the whaling by the Japanese to the rest of the world, what they were doing was really wrong IMO. In my view they needed to know that international waters work two ways, if they resorted to harassment by trying to foul propellers by draglines or throwing chemicals onto the decks of ships and get away with it, then they should expect retaliation and accept that instead of spitting the dummy every time their whaling boats took defensive/offensive measures.

 

That said, I would have loved just one trip down south with them.................. 

Am I correct in believing that if somebody was attempting to disable or board without permission my vessel at sea, I would be within my rights to use lethal force?

[chrisinth]

1 hour ago, halloween said:

Am I correct in believing that if somebody was attempting to disable or board without permission my vessel at sea, I would be within my rights to use lethal force?

Not sure what the correct answer to that is.

 

My thoughts would be that it would be to do with whatever flag the vessel is registered under, ie, you would follow the laws of that country. Could be wrong here. I believe there are laws for international waters, but don't know what they are. Or even who you would report to in the event of using lethal force and there were no witnesses..............

 

In any event, if your vessel is under attack (define attack??) you would most certainly have the right to defend your vessel and all embarked on her IMO.

 

The problem that the Japanese had with the Sea Shepherd crowd was that everything was being filmed and the Japanese were being provoked into retaliation. They knew this very well and had their hands tied to this end.

[thaihome]

Whaling in Japan is an internal political issues with practically no ant-Whaling support. This is due mainly to cultural factors and an entrenched governmental bureaucracy not under the control of elected officials. 

 

Japanese on the whole do not consider whales as anything more then a big fish and have not developed the emotional attachment expressed by many here. They consider that emotional attachment a western cultural thing they have no need for.

 

A worthwhile read on the issue and the futility of attempting to force western cultural values on the Japanese (ignoring of course that both Norway and Iceland also participate in commercial whaling) .  

 

Two major factors—the lack of congruence between the anti-whaling
norm and domestic cultural values, and the hegemonistic control over decision-making on this issue by pro-whaling government agencies—have prevented anti-whaling advocates from influencing whaling policy.

 

http://www.csun.edu/~kh246690/whaling.pdf

 

I do have to say I watched many episodes of "Whale Wars" and found it moderately entertaining.  It was interesting at times to watch mostly young ideologues (who have seriously anthropomorphized whales) try to stop people just doing their jobs with absolutely no attempt to by either side to understand the cultural contexts of the other.

https://psychcentral.com/news/2010/03/01/why-do-we-anthropomorphize/11766.html

TH 

[RobFord]

Hunting whales is irrelevant to feeding Japan's population, draws global condemnation and is certainly not economic. So why does Japan still do it?


"But Junko Sakuma thinks the answer lies in the fact that Japan's whaling is government-run, a large bureaucracy with research budgets, annual plans, promotions and pensions.
"If the number of staff in a bureaucrat's office decreases while they are in charge, they feel tremendous shame," she says.

"Which means most of the bureaucrats will fight to keep the whaling section in their ministry at all costs. And that is true with the politicians as well. If the issue is closely related to their constituency, they will promise to bring back commercial whaling. It is a way of keeping their seats."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[thaihome]

7 minutes ago, RobFord said:

Hunting whales is irrelevant to feeding Japan's population, draws global condemnation and is certainly not economic. So why does Japan still do it?


"But Junko Sakuma thinks the answer lies in the fact that Japan's whaling is government-run, a large bureaucracy with research budgets, annual plans, promotions and pensions.
"If the number of staff in a bureaucrat's office decreases while they are in charge, they feel tremendous shame," she says.

"Which means most of the bureaucrats will fight to keep the whaling section in their ministry at all costs. And that is true with the politicians as well. If the issue is closely related to their constituency, they will promise to bring back commercial whaling. It is a way of keeping their seats."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

 

Keep in mind that the International Whaling Commission  (IWC) was not setup to stop whaling but to regulate it to prevent overfishing of threatened species (see the short history in the paper I posted a link to). Japan was a willing early joiner and even today is major contributor.   

 

It was only several years later after regulations had stopped such overfishing and many non-whaling countries joined that the organization changed to one of stopping whaling completely.  

 

Dispite showing some degree of intelligence whales will always be [potential] food to many cultures around the world. To change such cultures, even though whale meat does not contribute much to the diet can easily be construed as an attack on the culture and identity of a people. Particularly if used as such by politicians to garner support in the guise of protecting the culture.  

 

Once they are protected from extinction, whales just don't seem worth all this fuss to me. 

TH 

 

[Scott]

Off-topic post and reply removed.

 

[halloween]

14 hours ago, thaihome said:

 

Keep in mind that the International Whaling Commission  (IWC) was not setup to stop whaling but to regulate it to prevent overfishing of threatened species (see the short history in the paper I posted a link to). Japan was a willing early joiner and even today is major contributor.   

 

It was only several years later after regulations had stopped such overfishing and many non-whaling countries joined that the organization changed to one of stopping whaling completely.  

 

Dispite showing some degree of intelligence whales will always be [potential] food to many cultures around the world. To change such cultures, even though whale meat does not contribute much to the diet can easily be construed as an attack on the culture and identity of a people. Particularly if used as such by politicians to garner support in the guise of protecting the culture.  

 

Once they are protected from extinction, whales just don't seem worth all this fuss to me. 

TH 

 

I was an avid sci-fi reader as a child, Azimov, Heinlein, Blish, Vonnegut, and the subject of farming whales was the subject of quite a few short stories. Of course, this is before the tree-huggers adopted them.

[dick dasterdly]

Reminder to self - must not instantly hate all Japanese, as there must be a few that hate the killing of whales for profit.

[ilostmypassword]

On 8/29/2017 at 5:39 PM, ChiangMaiLightning2143 said:

I believe overseas whaling is wrong. Greenpeace terrorism and piracy is also wrong. I feel strongly that it should be left to the legitimate Navies of the world under UN authority to blow these ships out of the water. The Japanese would then have no choice but to stop pointless slaughter of whales.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 

Except that what the Japanese whalers are doing isn't illegal.

[ilostmypassword]

22 hours ago, thaihome said:

Whaling in Japan is an internal political issues with practically no ant-Whaling support. This is due mainly to cultural factors and an entrenched governmental bureaucracy not under the control of elected officials. 

 

Japanese on the whole do not consider whales as anything more then a big fish and have not developed the emotional attachment expressed by many here. They consider that emotional attachment a western cultural thing they have no need for.

 

A worthwhile read on the issue and the futility of attempting to force western cultural values on the Japanese (ignoring of course that both Norway and Iceland also participate in commercial whaling) .  

 

 

 

 

I do have to say I watched many episodes of "Whale Wars" and found it moderately entertaining.  It was interesting at times to watch mostly young ideologues (who have seriously anthropomorphized whales) try to stop people just doing their jobs with absolutely no attempt to by either side to understand the cultural contexts of the other.

https://psychcentral.com/news/2010/03/01/why-do-we-anthropomorphize/11766.html

TH 

On the other hand they hardly eat any whale meat any more and support of the government position is hardly overwhelming

 

"Declining consumer interest has created a huge stockpile of unsold produce that, campaigners say, proves the industry is in terminal decline. Three-quarters of meat from whales caught in the north-west Pacific last summer went unsold, according to a report this year by Junko Sakuma, a freelance journalist.

Sakuma said the body responsible for selling meat from Japan's whaling programme had failed to shift 908 tonnes of the 1,211-tonne catch, despite holding 13 public auctions since October 2011."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/nov/30/japan-whale-hunts-survey

[Skeptic7]

3 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

Reminder to self - must not instantly hate all Japanese, as there must be a few that hate the killing of whales for profit.

Good DD...don't hate(!), because there are so many reasons to love the Japanese and...

 

...there are more than just a few Japanese opposed. Actually there are many opposed, but the answer gets muddied and complicated as to why they still do it. Really confusing because whaling is not profitable in Japan and is mostly a cultural bad habit that would fold without substantial government subsidies. The vast majority of Japanese don't even eat whale meat anymore. More pressure is needed from the IWC and supporting countries...specifically NZ & Australia and the USA & EU.