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2008 News

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Greenpeace: Japanese ship's crew stole whale meat
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Greenpeace filed a criminal complaint with Japanese prosecutors Thursday, accusing whaling-ship crew members of stealing whale meat from a hunting trip.

The environmental group said "large-scale embezzlement" was allowed as an "open secret" by the Institute of Cetacean Research in Japan. The body oversees Japanese whale hunts, which are done in the name of "scientific" research.

The institute has previously accused Greenpeace and other organizations of "harassment" for interfering with Japanese whaling voyages.

The environmental group said that 12 members of a one whaling ship sent out at least 47 boxes of whale meat after they returned to a Tokyo port.

At the press conference, Greenpeace showed one box that it said contained about 52 pounds (23.5 kilograms) of salted whale belly meat worth up to $3,000.

The Japanese Fisheries Agency said that there is a long-standing custom of giving small amounts of whale meat to crew members as a "souvenir." It said it will investigate to determine whether embezzlement is taking place.

Junichi Hoshikawa, the executive director of Greenpeace in Japan, said at a press conference that the embezzlement of whale meat "will hurt Japan's credibility and trust, which is already shaky under so-called 'scientific' research whaling."

In the early 1980s, the International Whaling Commission determined that there should be a moratorium on commercial whale hunting. Whaling is allowed under international law when done for scientific reasons, which Japan cites as the legal basis for its hunts.

The country's annual hunt kills up to 1,000 whales a year. Many in the international community say such hunts amount to needless slaughter. Critics say that Japan's research is actually a pretext for retrieving whale meat to be sold in markets and restaurants.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups have waged a long battle against Japan's whaling activities.

This year's 101-day hunt was dogged by Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessels. The Japanese whaling fleet caught 551 minke whales -- more than a third less than its goal of 850.

"This year's mission was disrupted intensively by Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, who use violent means for disturbance," Hajime Ishikawa, the head of Japan's whaling mission, said last month.

"Putting aside our own safety, their action put their own lives in danger ... Therefore, we had to stop whaling a total of 31 days."

The Web site for Sea Shepherd, a hardline conservation group, called the operation a "huge success."

Greenpeace also claimed success interfering in the Japanese whale hunt.

"Greenpeace played a significant part in nearly halving the amount of whales killed this season," said Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan's whales campaigner. "However, 551 whales is still over a hundred more than Japan took three years ago ... This blatantly commercial whale hunt must end immediately."

In March, Japanese whalers and anti-whaling activists clashed in waters near Antarctica.

Sea Shepherd founder Capt. Paul Watson told CNN that two of his crew members were injured when crew members on the Japanese ship Nisshin Maru threw flash grenades aboard his ship, the Steve Irwin.

Watson also said he took a bullet to the chest while wearing a Kevlar vest. "We don't know where that bullet came from," he told CNN.

Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs the Japanese whaling ships, denied firing any shots.

"No one shot Paul Watson. His claim that we shot at him and he has the bullet that was stopped by his bullet-proof vest is more fiction for articles by the Australian media," said Minoru Morimoto, the director general of the institute, in a news release on its Web site.

The institute said it threw seven "sound balls," which it described as "harmless" explosive devices, after people aboard the Sea Shepherd threw bottles of butyric acid -- an acid found in rotten butter -- at the Nisshin Maru.

The Japanese Coast Guard had also given "clear and loud warnings to the Sea Shepherd vessel during two passes," the institute said. It did not describe the type of warnings.

The institute said it was "disappointed that more serious means were required today for defending its research vessels in the Antarctic."

The International Whaling Commission will meet in Chile next month to discuss reaching an agreement on whale conservation rules.

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Fisheries Agency have lobbied a dozen members of the whaling commission, making their case to officials from Angola, Eritrea, the Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Palau, Micronesia, Cambodia, Laos and Vanuatu.

Source: CNN, updated 9:20 a.m. EDT, Thu May 15, 2008

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Anti-whaling groups claim partial victory
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Anti-whaling groups have claimed partial victory in their attempts to disrupt Japan's annual whale hunt in Antarctic waters.

Dogged by Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessels during the 101-day hunt, the Japanese whaling fleet caught 551 minke whales during its recently completed hunt -- more than a third less than its goal of 850.

"This year's mission was disrupted intensively by Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, who use violent means for disturbance," Hajime Ishikawa, the head of Japan's whaling mission, said Tuesday.

"Putting aside our own safety, their action put their own lives in danger ... Therefore, we had to stop whaling a total of 31 days."

The Web site for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a hardline conservation group, called the operation a "huge success," and the proclamation comes ahead of a key International Whaling Commission meeting in Chile this June. The commission is meeting to discuss reaching an agreement on whale conservation rules.

In March, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Fisheries Agency lobbied a dozen members of the whaling commission, making their case to officials from Angola, Eritrea, the Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Palau, Micronesia, Cambodia, Laos and Vanuatu.

Sea Shepherd uses its boats to interfere with whaling and fishing boats, and its efforts have included ramming a Portuguese whaler, the Sierra, in 1979, according to the group's Web site.

In the early 1980s, the International Whaling Commission determined that there should be a moratorium on commercial whale hunting. Whaling is allowed under international law when done for scientific reasons, which Japan cites as the legal basis for its hunts.

The country's annual hunt kills up to 1,000 whales a year -- the fisheries agency insists it wants "sustainable whaling."

Many in the international community -- particularly Australia -- believe that such hunts amount to needless slaughter. Critics say that Japan's research is actually a pretext for retrieving whale meat to be sold in markets and restaurants.

Greenpeace also claimed success interfering in the Japanese whale hunt.

"Greenpeace played a significant part in nearly halving the amount of whales killed this season," said Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan's whales campaigner. "However, 551 whales is still over a hundred more than Japan took three years ago ... This blatantly commercial whale hunt must end immediately."

The head of Japan's whaling operation promised to press on.

"The biggest achievement of this mission was to complete the mission without giving into the disruption by anti-whaling groups," Ishikawa said.

Source: CNN, updated 4:04 a.m. EDT, Wed April 16, 2008

Related Information

• Whalers, activists clash in Antarctica (CNN) - video's

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Green groups call for Antarctic shipping restrictions
Australia (ABC Online) -- Environmental campaigners are calling for tighter restrictions on shipping around Antarctica in order to prevent damage to its unique ecosystems.

More tourists than ever before are visiting Antarctica and some are in ships not designed for the harsh conditions.

The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition is asking the International Maritime Organisation to strengthen its rules.

The Coalition and its allies want ships that use heavy oil and fuel banned from Antarctic waters.

They want to see tighter restrictions on the discharge of sewage and grey water, and a requirement that all vessels entering the region are strengthened to withstand icy conditions.

Source: ABC Online, Posted Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:00pm AEDT

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Antarctica’s environmental risks
London, Surrey, UK (asap News) -- There are more and more visitors going to Antarctica, many arriving on cruise ships. A leading expert says that the southern pole continent is facing environmental threats from tourism that operates unchecked.

Aside from environmental factors, there are safety concerns as well. Alan Hemmings, speaking from Wellington, New Zealand, says that the huge cruise ships sailing the Antarctic Sea are at risk, with crews unfamiliar with the conditions making the possibility of an accident possible.

Using the Golden Princess Cruise liner as an example, Hemmings says that if there was an accident, "It just beggars belief that, even if they got these people to shore after a sinking, there would be any way to take care of them all." He also noted that while the 210-metre cruise ship returned without incident, the Golden Princess has no ice protection on its hull. "There are those of us who think this should be absolutely required," he added.

On the environmental side, Hemmings points out the Norwegian cruise ship that spilled 750 litres of diesel fuel into the sea when it ran ashore last February.

Source: asap News, Posted April 4, 2008 by Rosie Vaughan-Jones

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Penguins Helped and Hurt by Changing Climate
NPR - USA, by Daniel Zwerdling

Listen Now [7 min 6 sec] -- All Things Considered, March 31, 2008. We take off by helicopter from America's main research base in Antarctica toward Cape Royds, where exactly 100 years ago, in 1908, scientists started studying the local penguin colony. It takes only 20 minutes to get there, but it's one of the most spectacular trips of my life. The Earth is blinding white in every direction. We pass a white wall of mountains off to the left and, on the right, an active volcano with steam curling out of the vent.

Then the helicopter drops us in a small clearing. We climb a snowy ridge, and there at the top are thousands of noisy penguins. They're crowded together on a mound of black volcanic rock, and they're squawking and cooing their hearts out.

These penguins are called Adelies. They look like emperors, which were showcased in the hit movie March of the Penguins. Only Adelies aren't as big — they barely come up to my thighs. Most are milling around; some are flopped on their stomachs on nests which they make out of stones. There are fuzzy chicks that look like toys.

Our guide is David Ainley, one of the most respected penguin researchers in the world. He says he loves studying Adelie penguins, partly because they're so out there. Literally.

"There's no bushes here; they don't dig burrows. They just sit out here in full view and they don't really care if we're around. They have no secrets," Ainley says.

It's surprising to hear him talk this way, because researchers don't usually ascribe human emotions to animals. But when Ainley talks about these penguins, it sounds like he's talking about friends.

"Penguins have no self-doubt," Ainley says, adding sheepishly: "Which I have lots of, for myself."

Ainley has a thick white mane and a white mustache which spreads across his rugged face. He seems more comfortable with penguins than people. He's been studying penguins over the past 40 years, and he says he's still amazed what Adelies can do. As we're chatting, penguins are filing past us like a line of wind-up dolls. They're heading to the sea, a couple hundred yards away, and they're leaping in, headfirst.

"They are good examples of how we all should live. They're the epitome of the word dauntless," Ainley says.

These Adelies dive up to 400 feet, dodging giant ice floes the size of cars which bash around in the surf. Some of the penguins are already coming back, shooting straight out of the water like a circus trick. Ainley says they can leap nine or ten feet, popping out of the water like corks.

Finding Answers

Scientists say penguins are providing some of the first clues of how global warming is changing the planet. And Ainley has come up with evidence by asking very basic questions: Is this penguin colony growing or shrinking? Are the penguins finding plenty of fish to eat or are they hungry? To get the answers, Ainley arms himself with a syringe loaded with tiny computer identification chips. Then he and his colleagues grab a penguin and hoist it like a squirming dog.

"We put them under our arm and hold them tightly. They're extremely strong. They're very aggressive, and they're very territorial," Ainley says. "And they definitely aren't used to being touched ... They don't even want to be touched by another penguin."

Still, the researchers inject a chip in every angry penguin's shoulder. Then they take a computerized scale, which looks like a rubber mat, and they place it on the path so the penguins cross it. This system lets Ainley track all kinds of information. For instance, what time does each penguin go fishing and when does it come back? How much weight does the penguin gain or lose?

An Unpredictable Future

Scientists have been doing similar studies in other parts of Antarctica. They've plotted their findings against the climate. The results are striking. During the past few decades, as climate patterns in some parts of the continent have changed dramatically, Adelies in some regions have almost disappeared. Their numbers have plunged 80 percent. But the Adelies where Ainley does his research are doing better than ever.

"These penguins are definitely being helped by climate change," Ainley says.

Ainley and other researchers think they know why. Most types of penguins go fishing only in open water, so they're all competing with each other to find food. But Adelies catch their fish by diving deep under the ice. In fact, they're just about the only penguin that can physically do that. So, when there's plenty of ice over the sea, Adelies hardly have any competition and they can get all the food they want.

Now the changing climate is shaking things up. In some areas where most of the ice has melted, Adelies can't survive. But Cape Royds used to have too much ice, and now it has just the right amount. So penguins here are doing great.

Ainley says here's the moral: Global warming is making life unpredictable. Early this year, he was studying another penguin colony, and a glacier was melting.

"There were huge rivers running off this glacier, running through the penguin colony, and the rivers were engulfing these penguin nests. And the penguins just kept collecting rocks to try to make their nests bigger, raise them up out of the water. And for many of them, they couldn't collect rocks fast enough. And so their eggs were just washed away," Ainley says.

"I thought it was really unfair, that humans a long way away were oblivious to what they're doing to the Earth, to these penguins' home," he adds, looking over his shoulder at the Adelies waddling by.

Ainley's radio crackles, and we get word that our helicopter is arriving soon. We make our way toward the landing site. But Ainley will return soon — he's coming back to Cape Royds next season, to kick off another hundred years of learning from the penguins.

Source: NPR, Posted March 31, 2008
Produced by Peter Breslow

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Massive ice shelf on verge of breakup
(CNN) -- Some 220 square miles of ice has collapsed in Antarctica and an ice shelf about seven times the size of Manhattan is "hanging by a thread," the British Antarctic Survey said Tuesday, blaming global warming.

"We are in for a lot more events like this," said professor Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Scambos alerted the British Antarctic Survey after he noticed part of the Wilkins ice shelf disintegrating on February 28, when he was looking at NASA satellite images.

Late February marks the end of summer at the South Pole and is the time when such events are most likely, he said.

"The amazing thing was, we saw it within hours of it beginning, in between the morning and the afternoon pictures of that day," Scambos said of the large chunk that broke away on February 28.

The Wilkins ice shelf lost about 6 percent of its surface a decade ago, the British Antarctic Survey said in a statement on its Web site

Another 220 square miles -- including the chunk that Scambos spotted -- had splintered from the ice shelf as of March 8, the group said.

"As of mid-March, only a narrow strip of shelf ice was protecting several thousand kilometers of potential further breakup," the group said.

Scambos' center put the size of the threatened shelf at about 5,282 square miles, comparable to the state of Connecticut, or about half the area of Scotland.

Once Scambos called the British Antarctic Survey, the group sent an aircraft on a reconnaissance mission to examine the extent of the breakout.

"We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage," said Jim Elliott, according to the group's Web site.

"Big hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they've been thrown around like rubble -- it's like an explosion," he said.

"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened," David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey said, according to the Web site.

"I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread -- we'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be."

But with Antarctica's summer ending, Scambos said the "unusual show is over for this season."

Ice shelves are floating ice sheets attached to the coast. Because they are already floating, their collapse does not have any effect on sea levels, according to the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey.

Scambos said the ice shelf is not currently on the path of the increasingly popular tourist ships that travel from South America to Antarctica. But some plants and animals may have to adapt to the collapse.

"Wildlife will be impacted, but they are pretty adept at dealing with a topsy-turvy world," he said. "The ecosystem is pretty resilient."

Several ice shelves -- Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and Jones -- have collapsed in the past three decades, the British Antarctic Survey said.

Larsen B, a 1,254-square-mile ice shelf, comparable in size to the U.S. state of Rhode Island, collapsed in 2002, the group said.

Scientists say the western Antarctic peninsula -- the piece of the continent that stretches toward South America -- has warmed more than any other place on Earth over the past 50 years, rising by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit each decade.

Scambos said the poles will be the leading edge of what's happening in the rest of the world as global warming continues.

"Even though they seem far away, changes in the polar regions could have an impact on both hemispheres, with sea level rise and changes in climate patterns," he said.

News of the Wilkins ice shelf's impending breakup came less than two weeks after the United Nations Environment Program reported that the world's glaciers are melting away and that they show "record" losses.

"Data from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled," the UNEP said March 16.

The most severe glacial shrinking occurred in Europe, with Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier, UNEP said. That glacier thinned by about 10 feet in 2006, compared with less than a foot the year before, it said.

Source: CNN, updated 4:29 a.m. EDT, Wed March 26, 2008

Related Information

• Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration Underscores a Warming World (NSIDC)
• Press Release - Antarctic ice shelf "hangs by a thread" (BAS)
• Video: Aerial footage of Ice Shelf Breaking up (CNN, Source: BAS)
• Ice Shelf Disintegrating in Antarctica (CNN)

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Grim photos released in battle over whaling
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Australia's government on Thursday released graphic pictures of Japanese hunters harpooning whales and dragging the bleeding carcasses onto a ship near Antarctica, calling it evidence of "indiscriminate" slaughter.

Japan denied one of the photographs showed a mother and its calf being killed, and accused Australian officials and media of spreading propaganda that could damage ties between the two nations.

The images were the latest salvo in the new Australian government's stepped-up campaign against Japan's annual whale hunt, which resumed recently after being interrupted by environmental activists who chased the fleet through icy waters at the far south of the world.

The pictures were taken from the Oceanic Viking, an Australian customs service ship sent to monitor the hunt and collect evidence for a legal challenge the government wants to bring against Japan's claim that it kills whales only for scientific purposes.

"It is explicitly clear from these images that this is the indiscriminate killing of whales, where you have a whale and its calf killed in this way," Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett told reporters.

"To claim that this is in any way scientific is to continue the charade that has surrounded this issue from day one," he said.

The images include video footage of a harpoon being fired into a swimming whale, which writhes as it is hauled toward the ship. The whale eventually stops moving and lies still in bloodstained waters, the harpoon clearly visible piercing its body.

One picture shows two whales -- one far smaller than the other -- being dragged by ropes or cables up a ramp in the stern of a ship as blood dribbles down.

Hideki Moronuki, chief of the Japanese Fishing Agency's whaling section, denied the photograph depicted a baby whale.

"The fleet is engaged in random sampling, which means they are taking both large and small whales. This is not a parent and calf," Moronuki said in Tokyo.

He also accused Australian officials of getting dangerously close to Japan's whaling ships to take the pictures.

The Institute of Cetacean Research, the Japanese government-affiliated organization that oversees the hunt, posted a statement on its Web site headlined: "Australian Customs Photos Mislead the Public."

"The Government of Australia photographs and the media reports have created a dangerous emotional propaganda that could cause serious damage to the relationship between our two countries," institute director Minoru Morimoto said in the statement.

Japan has staunchly defended its annual killing of more than 1,000 whales, conducted under a clause in International Whaling Commission rules that allows whales to be hunted for scientific purposes.

Critics call the Japanese program a disguise for commercial whaling, which has been banned by the commission since 1986.

Japan had planned to kill up to 50 endangered humpback whales this season, but backed away after strong international condemnation. It has a quota to kill 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales.

The whalers resumed their hunt in recent days after earlier being interrupted by ships sent by the Greenpeace environmentalist group and the militant activist group Sea Shepherd.

Two Sea Shepherd activists using a small boat got on board one of the harpoon ships in January and spent several days in detention before they were picked up by Australian customs officers. Greenpeace says it chased the fleet's whale processing ship out of the hunting grounds.

Both the Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace vessels later left Antarctic waters after running low on fuel and supplies.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's left-of-center Labor Party government replaced a conservative administration in November elections and has sought to burnish its environmental credentials on a number of fronts, such as quickly signing the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

In late December, the government announced it was sending a ship and plane to collect evidence for a case against Japan's whaling program before the International Court of Justice, the International Whaling Commission or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said the images released Thursday could be proof the Japanese program is a sham.

"We have got evidence of whaling being carried out in circumstances that we believe it should not be done," he told reporters.

Animal welfare groups expressed horror at the images.

"Japan's whaling is not just cruel, it's criminal," said Darren Kindleysides of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "The evidence is clear. It is time for Australia to take legal action to end this illegal, unnecessary and inhumane activity once and for all."

Source: CNN, POSTED 4:36 p.m. EST, Thu February 7, 2008

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Japan resumes Antarctic whale hunt
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Japan has resumed whaling in the waters near Antarctica -- only days after groups hoping to stop it left the area, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told CNN on Friday.

The whale hunt resumed in the Southern Ocean on Thursday even as Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith arrived in Japan on a diplomatic visit. Australia opposes whaling, but Smith said the two nations "agree to disagree" on it.

"I regard the resumption of whaling in the last couple of days as disappointing," Smith said Friday.

"We would prefer if it hadn't occurred, but that's as a consequence of the Australian government having a strong view that whaling should cease."

Australian claims a section of the Southern Ocean as territorial waters, but that claim is not widely recognized.

Commercial whaling is banned in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary -- a protected area of 50 million square kilometers (19 million square miles) surrounding the continent of Antarctica.

But Japan is permitted to around 1,000 whales a year under international law because its whaling is considered to be scientific in nature. Anti-whaling groups view the whale hunters as poachers.

Japan has been hunting whales in the Antarctic and has a killing quota of almost 1,000 a year.

The whaling resumed after the Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd activist groups ended their disruptions. A Greenpeace spokesman said the group figures it helped save at least 100 whales during the 15 days it interfered with whaling operations.

A Greenpeace ship left the area on Jan. 26 to return to port for refueling. The Sea Shepherd left due to low fuel as well.

Source: CNN, POSTED 5:58 a.m. EST, Fri February 1, 2008

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Japanese whalers 'head to NZ waters'
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Japan's whaling fleet was heading toward New Zealand-controlled waters in Antarctica, in breach of an agreement that it would remain in Australian waters during this year's whale hunt, a minister said Friday.

Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick said the Japanese fleet was photographed by a Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion airplane during a routine surveillance flight for illegal fishers in the southern oceans.

Chadwick said the Japanese whalers were heading toward the Ross Sea, an area for which New Zealand has international search and rescue responsibility.

After slaughtering whales in New Zealand's Antarctic waters last year, Japan had agreed under an International Whaling Commission protocol to hunt in Australian waters, Chadwick said.

"But it looks like they're heading into our territory down there -- very remote, very dangerous, very hostile territory," she told New Zealand's National Radio.

Last year's southern ocean whale hunt by Japan ended early after it's whaling fleet factory ship, Nisshin Maru, was crippled by fire and one crew member killed in New Zealand's Ross Sea waters.

The fire left the ship drifting and without engine power for 10 days, prompting strong protests over potential oil and chemical spills or damage to nearby Antarctic penguin colonies.

Chadwick said it was not illegal for the Japanese ships to go into Ross Sea waters that fall under New Zealand jurisdiction but it would breach a protocol the whalers agreed to earlier.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said the presence of the fleet anywhere near New Zealand's search and rescue area was cause for "grave concern."

"It's an area that's very difficult to access. If there are problems it's difficult to render assistance," she said.

Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for Japan's Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean Research, said he was unable to confirm where the whaling fleet was going, adding that New Zealand "has no claim" on the Ross Sea area, which is international waters.

Anti-whaling groups Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace have ships trailing the fleet and have already clashed with it -- notably when two Sea Shepherd crew boarded a whaling vessel and were held by the Japanese crew until an Australian government vessel had them released.

On Tuesday Greenpeace environmentalists clashed with the whalers, with each sides accusing the other of dangerous tactics after Greenpeace activists failed to prevent the factory ship from refueling.

Japan plans to slaughter nearly 1,000 whales this year as part of its scientific whale research program, dismissed by opponents as a front for continuing commercial whaling banned by the IWC in 1986.

Clark said the number of whales Japan is harvesting "makes it clear that this is not about science."

"It's about maintaining whaling with the hope that some time in the future they could return to commercial whaling," she said.

Source: CNN, POSTED 3:07 a.m. EST, Fri January 25, 2008

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Report: Australia steps into whaling standoff
(CNN) -- Australian authorities said Thursday that a customs vessel would pick up two activists currently aboard a Japanese whaler in Antarctic waters, news reports said.

The reports came as an anti-whaling group accused the crew of a Japanese vessel of kidnapping two activists who climbed on board the ship to try to stop its whaling operations in the Southern Ocean.

The incident caused Japan to contact the Australian government to help arrange the return of the two activists, The Associated Press reported.

Australian citizen Benjamin Potts and British citizen Giles Lane -- both members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society -- came on board the Yushin Maru No. 2 on Tuesday.

They tried to deliver a letter saying the vessel was violating international law and Australian law by killing whales.

A video from Sea Shepherd shows the two men tied to the ship's railing at one point while Japanese fishermen pace back and forth in front of them.

"They were seized by the crew and assaulted," said Capt. Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd.

"They're being held hostage, they've been kidnapped and the Japanese are trying to use them to try and extort an agreement out of us, which is to leave them alone ... which to me is a form of terrorism."

But the Japanese Fisheries Agency charged that the Sea Shepherd members were the terrorists.

The agency released pictures of broken bottles it claims the activists threw at the ship. It also showed a photo of the two men relaxing and drinking tea aboard the Yushin Maru.

Still, the image of the two men tied to the ship's railing is the one that has caused concern, leading to a call from the Australian government for the men's immediate release.

"For some time, for 10, 15 minutes, I understand, they were tied to a GPS mast," Tomohiko Taniguchi of Japan's Foreign Ministry told CNN. "The Japanese crew members feared that two crew members from Sea Shepherd might do something violent."

Potts and Lane boarded the vessel without permission, he said.

Watson countered the two boarded only after attempts to contact the ship by radio were unsuccessful.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said it spent most of Wednesday trying to get the men released, but that Sea Shepherd was not answering its phone calls. Sea Shepherd, meanwhile, told CNN it has not received a call from the Japanese government.

The impasse has led Tokyo to contact Australian authorities for assistance.

"It has become apparent that it will be impossible to hand the two trespassers back directly to Sea Shepherd, so our only option at this point is to make contact with another ship such as the customs vessel Australia dispatched," said Hideki Moronuki, a spokesman for the Japanese Fisheries Agency's whaling section, said in an AP report.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in an AP report that Canberra officials were considering the customs ship Oceanic Viking as a means of transferring the two activists.

Japan has been hunting whales in the Antarctic and apparently plans to kill as many as 1,000 this winter. The killings are allowed under international law because their main purpose is scientific.

"We regard them as poachers," Watson said.

Sea Shepherd claims Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research -- which is backing the operations -- has said it will release the two activists if Sea Shepherd agrees to stop interfering in its whaling operations. The group says it will not agree to that demand.

The Sea Shepherd vessel, the Steve Irwin, was no longer in sight or radar range of the Yushin Maru No. 2 on Wednesday, the group said in a statement.
"The good news is they haven't killed any whales for a week," Watson told CNN.

Source: CNN, POSTED 1:58 a.m. EST, Thu January 17, 2008

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Japan whalers 'scattered and ran'
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Greenpeace said Monday it has disrupted the Japanese whale hunt off Antarctica by chasing the fleet's whale processing factory ship out of the whaling zone.

The six-vessel fleet "scattered and ran" early Saturday when it realized the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza was "heading toward them at high speed," Greenpeace expedition leader Karli Thomas told New Zealand's National Radio.

The fleet's three whale hunter vessels "can't operate without the (factory ship) Nisshin Maru there to process the kill," she added.

Greenpeace has pledged to take nonviolent action to try to stop the ships from killing whales, which in the past has led to activists in speed boats trying to put themselves between whales and Japanese harpoons, and once led to a ship collision.

A spokesman for Japan's whale hunt called Greenpeace's actions illegal and demanded it stop its disruptive actions.

"Greenpeace actions are illegal under international law (and) it's time the public stopped treating Greenpeace as heroes," Glenn Inwood, spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, in Tokyo, Japan, said Monday.

"It's time the public saw this fringe group for what they really are: environmental imperialists who are trying to dictate their morals to the world."

Japan dispatched its whaling fleet to the icy waters of Antarctica in November to kill about 1,000 whales under a program that Tokyo says is for scientific purposes, but which anti-whaling nations and activists say is a front for commercial whaling.

Under worldwide pressure, Japan last month abandoned its plan to include 50 humpback whales in this season's hunt -- the first major hunt of humpback whales since the 1960s. It still plans to kill 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales.

Source: CNN, POSTED January 14, 2007 8:24 p.m. EST

Related Information

• Japan’s Whaling Obsession (New York Times)
• International Whaling Commission
• Greenpeace International
• Whaling battle moves to YouTube (BBC)
• Defending Whales in Antarctic Whale Sanctuary (Sea Shepherd)
• Swimming with Whales (MSNBC)
• Whaling in Japan (Wikipedia)
• Antarctic News Archives: 2007

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Other Related Polar or Regional News

 

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Other News Feeds

Google Antarctic News
70South Antarctic News
Headline News from Antarctica - Antarctic Connection
PRISM - Antarctic News
Antarctica News, Research and Current Events (brightsurf.com)
British Antarctic Survey - In the Media
Arctic & Antarctic News (NSF)

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