Whale City

It’s killing season in Japan, the factory ship has headed out sea, unceremoniously this year, though.  Wonder if that has anything to do with the anti-whaling activists whose attention they are probably trying to avoid?  And why wouldn’t they?  According to this article, the Sea Shepherd activists plan to disrupt the 2008-09 whaling season, like they did the last.  Last season Japan was only able to slaughter 551 whales, almost half of their 1,000 whale quota.  That is pretty bad-ass!

Meanwhile, in Australia, the Environment Minister, Mr. Peter Garret, the former lead singer of Midnight Oil, is revealing the details of a $4 million anti-whaling program.  Mr. Garrett said that the Australian government was undecided about whether to send a ship to shadow the Japanese hunting fleet.

Mr Garrett said he intends using diplomatic efforts together with the results of the new research project to influence the IWC and force Japan to stop hunting, “I’m not under any delusions as to how difficult and challenging this task is,” he said.

For more on this story read here.

Whoa! Hold it there!  Diplomatic efforts have not worked thus far, and it seems that the only people who are trying to actively do something are folks at Sea Shepherd.  It’s not the research that is the issue, it is the fact that whales are being slaughtered illegally for profit!  Now that Peter Garrett is in a position of power, a position where something could be done, why not do something?  Diplomacy can only get you so far, and activists are putting their lives at risk because governments are unwilling to do anything.

Finally, the whales are getting the attention they deserve in the form of a TV series on Animal Planet called Whale Wars, and no it’s not about whales fighting with each other.  Whale Wars follows the efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as it battles to end illegal whaling in the icy waters of the Antarctic.

Paul Watson is captain and founder of Sea Shepherd, a radical environmental group dedicated to ending illegal whaling.  For several years, Watson and a group of staff and volunteers have engaged in a campaign every winter to find and stop Japanese ships that hunt whales in the name of research, attempting to stop them by any means necessary.  Last winter, the crew stopped the Japanese from slaughtering 500 whales, but not without confrontations including gunfire, flash grenades, a dramatic hostage situation and full-throttled chases through the Antarctic Seas.

“This is an opportunity for millions of people around the world to wake up to the fact that hundreds of whales are being illegally slaughtered under the guise of research and we as the human species have to say enough is enough,” said Jonny Vasic, Director of Video and Film Projects for Sea Shepherd.

We, at Whale Watch salute the Sea Shepherd for their brave efforts, and we hope many of you will tune in on November 7, on the Animal Planet network.