Japanese whalers win this round vs. Sea Shepherd activists
The environmentalist group Sea Shepherd has called off its annual pursuit of Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean, according to the group’s founder, who said it cannot keep up with Japan’s surveillance technology.
“What we discovered is that Japan is now employing military surveillance to watch Sea Shepherd ship movements in real time by satellite,” the group’s founder, Paul Watson, said in a statement this week. “If they know where our ships are at any given moment, they can easily avoid us.”
Sea Shepherd, a self-described “eco-vigilante” group founded in 1977, has spent years patrolling the remote Antarctic Ocean, investigating and documenting illegal fishing and whaling operations, putting it directly at odds with Japanese vessels. In addition to filming the operations, the group uses confrontational tactics that include shooting water cannon and stink bombs at the Japanese vessels.
Watson maintains that his group acts within the law.
In 2014, Japan’s Antarctic whaling was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice. That brought a halt to a program that had left thousands of minke, humpback and fin whales dead over 26 years. Japan revived the whaling in 2015 under a new program with a quota, though it has been condemned by scientists.
Watson said his small fleet could not compete with the government-backed whaling ships, but resources are only part of the problem for Sea Shepherd. The passage of anti-terrorism laws, “some of which are specifically designed to condemn Sea Shepherd tactics,” has further threatened operations, Watson said.
Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research, which carries out the whaling operations, says on its website that Sea Shepherd’s actions in the Antarctic amount to “terrorism and threaten human life at sea.”
The institute said Sea Shepherd methods included “illegal boarding and ramming of research vessels” and “increasingly dangerous and violent sabotage methods which include entangling devices (propeller foulers), throwing and shooting of chemical-containing projectiles, smoke bombs and incendiary devices.”
Videos recorded by Sea Shepherd show Japanese vessels ramming its ships.
While Sea Shepherd will not send ships to the Antarctic Ocean this year, Watson vowed that the group would return.