RICHARD FREEMAN: Sea Shepherd thwarts Japanese whalers

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has put an end the Japanese whaling fleet’s murder of marine mammals, for this year at least. The whalers were forced to cut short this year's Antarctic whale hunt and Japan's whaling fleet is heading back to port with less than half of its projected quota. The Sea Sheppard ships Gijira and Bob Barker (the former named after the Japanese movie monster) had harassed the whalers making hunting impossible for them.

In November last year, in defiance of global opposition and several international laws, Japan's whaling fleet set off for the pristine Southern Ocean Sanctuary with the intention of slaughtering 1,000 whales. Despite a global ban on commercial whaling, Japan has continued to hunt whales under the loophole of ‘scientific whaling', yet while the meat is put on sale in restaurants and supermarkets, no science has been ever produced from the slaughter of these animals.

Hopefully the heroic efforts of the Sea Sheppard group this year will prove the death knell for whaling.