A few Sea Shepherd facts
SOMETIMES, when I raise the point that I’m a huge Sea Shepherd Conservation Society supporter, I get accused of supporting terrorists (generally by people who are rigid ideologues or somehow connected with whaling and occasionally Japanese people who are diehard nationalists – sadly, it’s the whales that “die hard”.). I then get the tired old line trotted out that Japan is doing nothing illegal. So without further ado here, in the words of Paul Watson, is a list of illegal activities that the whalers are performing on video:
“1. The Japanese are whaling in violation of the International Whaling Commission’s global moratorium on commercial whaling. The IWC scientific committee announced it does not recognize Japan’s whaling activities as “research,” and thus Japan is not exempt from the commercial whaling ban.
In 2008, Japan released its first research finding in many years from the annual slaughter. The research finding was as follows: “Injecting dead whale sperm into a cow, does not result in producing a cow-whale hybrid creature.”
2. The IWC doesn’t just ban commercial whaling, the IWC specifically bans whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary where Japan whales.
3. The Japanese are in violation of IWC regulation 19. (a) The IWC regulations in the Schedule to the Convention forbid the use of factory ships to process any protected stock: 19. (a) It is forbidden to use a factory ship or a land station for the purpose of treating any whales which are classified as Protection Stocks in paragraph 10. Paragraph 10(c) provides a definition of Protection Stocks and states that Protection Stocks are listed in the Tables of the Schedule. Table 1 lists all the baleen whales, including minke, fin and humpback whales and states that all of them are Protection Stocks. The main ship in the Japanese whaling fleet is the Nisshin Maru, the whaling fleet factory ship, which allows the fleet to kill 1,000 whales a year at sea at a time.
4. In addition, the IWC regulations specifically ban the use of factory ships to process any whales except minke whales: Paragraph 10(d) provides: (d) Notwithstanding the other provisions of paragraph 10 there shall be a moratorium on the taking, killing or treating of whales, except minke whales, by factory ships or whale catchers attached to factory ships. This moratorium applies to sperm whales, killer whales and baleen whales, except minke whales.
5. The Antarctic Treaty specifies the area that Japan is whaling in, as Australia’s territory. Japan is a signing member of the Antarctic Treaty. According to a law it signed, Japan is violating Australia sovereign territory.
6. Before the 2007-2008 Japanese whale hunt, the highest federal court of Australia passed an order stating that it is illegal for Japan to whale in its Antarctic Territory.
7. Article 1 of The Antarctic Treaty specifies that the area in which Japan is bringing military personnel and military gear/weapons for military purposes, is a demilitarized zone in which it is illegal to bring military personnel and military gear for any non-peaceful purposes.
8. The Japanese are in violation of targeting whales protected by the UN’s CITES and the UN Law of the Sea. Japan is a member nation of CITES.”
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society “terrorists”?
So, do I support terrorists? More from Watson:
“WE OPERATE LEGALLY under the UN World Charter for Nature, which gives any NGO or individual the right to stop poaching or illegal environmental destruction that’s outlawed by international conservation laws.
Japan has an extradition treaty with the US, and has filmed me during our engagements with them. They have said they will extradite all of us US criminals for prosecution, but have never done so, even though they are granted this right by international agreements. If we could legally extradite any terrorists who have attacked us, and we have film of them doing illegal actions, under which conditions would we NOT extradite them?”
Minke Whales Threatened?
And while we’re at it, are Minke Whales classified as Threatened or not?
Minke whales, in particular, are considered to be particularly threatened by the United Nations’ Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which Japan is a member nation of, so even Japan officially considers the minke whale to be particularly threatened.
I promise not to do this “off topic” thing very often. I figured that this is the best place to put an article like this that I can post links to now and again.
I’ve taken dozens of actions against poachers on shorelines around Australia, so why wouldn’t I support the SSCS in their action against Japanese whale poachers, illegal long line fishing, shark finning, etc..
We should also not forget that many of the activities of the SSCS support pelagic bird populations, as well as battle against a number of other outrages against the Earth’s oceans by feral humans driven by greed and ignorance.