Features National
Ida Torres on May 9 2013
As their US arm continues to be mired in legal battles with Japan in the US courts, militant conservation group
Sea Shepherd has to turn to donations outside the country in order to reach the 4 million dollars needed to fund their activities. The money is primarily needed for their campaign against Japan's whaling fleet next year.
The Institute of Cetacean Research, the managing government agency for Japanese
whaling activities, has criticized the Australian government for tolerating the activities of hardline conservationists that have interfered with and caused damage to its whaling fleet. They cited the federal government being a safe harbor for the
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the number one enemy of the annual whale hunt initiated by the Japanese government for "research" purposes.
According to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry of Japan, this year was a record low for the whaling fleet, with only 103 Antarctic minke whales and no fin whales caught for its "research whaling" program. Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi blames the "unforgivable sabotage" by activists, particularly by the militant environmentalist group
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Environmental extremist group
Sea Shepherd is now trying to have criminal charges filed against Japanese whalers in the Netherlands. As two of the group's ships sail under Dutch flags, they the country's authorities to prosecute the Japanese for acts of piracy for intentionally ramming their ships during their recent scuffle in the Southern Ocean.
The fleet and crew of the extremist anti-whaling group
Sea Shepherd arrived in Australia on Wednesday, claiming victory in this year's campaign against Japan's whalers, and calling for free passage for founder
Paul Watson. Three of their four ships, the Steve Irwin, Bob Barker, and Sam Simon docked with an estimated $1.03 million in damages, while the fourth ship, the Brigitte Bardot, remains at an undisclosed location with Watson believed to be aboard, as he is still wanted by Interpol.
Sea Shepherd founder
Paul Watson can cross Germany off his "Cannot visit" list. According to him, the country has canceled the warrant for his arrest, because the Costa Rican government failed to meet the deadline for an explanation asked by the government.
Anti-whaling group
Sea Shepherd revealed that a Japanese whaling vessel is apparently returning to its hunting grounds in the Southern Ocean as shown by a tracking device placed on the ship. Earlier it had seemed that the Japanese fleet had
closed its whaling season and was heading home but Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson says a tracker on the fuel tanker Sun Laurel shows that it has changed course and appears to be returning south.
Japan’s whaling fleet has seemingly made its way out of the Antarctic Ocean whale sanctuary and looks to be heading home with a record low haul, the activist environmental group
Sea Shepherd revealed. Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said on Saturday that this year his group’s “enormously successful” harassment campaign of Japan’s annual whale hunt will result in the whalers’ lowest
haul in history, with “no more than 75″ whales harvested.
Karen Scott, a law professor at New Zealand's University of Canterbury, has criticized the U.S. court that labeled the extreme activist group
Sea Shepherd as "modern-day pirates," and says the judge went too far. In deciding on a lawsuit from Japan's whaling industry, which is currently struggling to conduct its annual hunt in the Southern Ocean, Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said earlier this week that Sea Shepherd's actions
were inexcusable, regardless of what they consider to be honorable intentions.
On Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the country's largest federal court, condemned the
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and founder Paul Watson as modern-day pirates for the actions they take against Japan's whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean. This is the same court that
issued an injunction in December for the extreme activists to stay at least 500 yards away from Japan's ships, an order that has obviously been
ignored several times now.
