Whaling vessel sinks sea shepherd anti-whaling ship
Japanese security ship Shonan Maru No. 2 has deliberately rammed the Ady Gil and caused massive damage to the Sea Shepherd catamaran.
Six crewmembers; four from New Zealand, one from Australia, and one from the Netherlands; were rescued by the crew of the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker. None of the Ady Gil crew was injured.
Captain Chuck Swift of the Bob Barker said that the attack happened while the vessels were dead in the water. The Shonan Maru No. 2 deliberately rammed the Ady Gil, ripping eight feet of the bow of the vessel completely off.
"The Japanese whalers have now escalated this conflict very violently," said Captain Paul Watson. "If they think that our remaining two ships, The Bob Barker and the Steve Irwin, will retreat from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the face of their extremism, they will be mistaken. We now have a real whale war on our hands now and we have no intention of retreating."
Despite round-the-clock efforts to save the Ady Gil the ship finally sunk. Fortunately all fuel and lubricants had been removed before she finally went down.
The CFZ support the brave eco-warriors of Sea Shepherd and take heed of their example in dealing with the enemies of justice.
The Japanese whalers have totally lost the PR war. In fact, they probably lost it before Paul Watson went after them.
ReplyDeleteI have no trouble with subsistence hunting. I do have trouble with market hunting. Market hunting destroyed so much of North America's wildlife in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it continues to destroy Africa's wildlife in the bushmeat trade.
I'd like to know what sort of "research" these whaling fleets are doing. It seems to me that most of what they are doing is taking measurements of their catch and then rendering it up for meat.
Don't expect the new Japanese government to crack down on this at all. They might be more sensitive to pressure than the old LDP government, but they still have a fishermen's union constituency to please at home.
It is regrettable that the "sons of Nippon" have once more shown their contempt for civilised behaviour.
ReplyDeleteBut what more can one expect of people from what has been through out history, one of this worlds most cruel, evil and least civilised empires.
If only they had defied the Yanks and held out a bit longer in August 1945 we would most likely not have the problem of their wicked ways now.