Sea Shepherd activists hurl stink bombs at whalers

Saturday 27th December, 05:33 AM JST

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cleo at 11:38 PM JST - 27th December

a victim of a violent crime

You mean like having an exploding harpoon fired into your body, and spending half an hour bleeding/drowning to death? Maybe every person who supports the whalers' activities should be on the receiving end of that kind of treatment, to understand why those activities are not acceptable.
kwatt at 01:07 AM JST - 28th December

Sea Shepherd members and anti-whalers seem NOT to understand differences between what is legal and what is illegal. You guys studied rules or laws in school. didn't you? Making violences is usually against legality. Ramming to other ships or jumping onto other ships or thowing chemical things into other ships are all illegal and all against international law. These activities/actions are all a sort of violences. That's all about it.
UnagiDon at 01:39 AM JST - 28th December

It's so refreshing to see people who value the lives of animals more than their fellow human claiming the moral high ground.
Airion at 01:59 AM JST - 28th December

I don't think the Sea Shepherd members misunderstand what is legal and illegal. I'm sure they fully realize that they're doing is illegal. But they clearly strongly believe that what they are doing is morally right. The whalers are operating legally, but morally? Hunting whales under false pretense? Even though Sea Shepherd is acting outside the law, I think they're doing the right thing. They're like Batman!
UnagiDon at 02:29 AM JST - 28th December

Even though Sea Shepherd is acting outside the law, I think they're doing the right thing. They're like Batman!

That's beyond simplistic, ignoring the fact that morality is subjective but international law is not. Sea Shepherd is more Joker than Batman.
YuriOtani at 03:00 AM JST - 28th December

Try adding some fermented extra stinky naito to the mix or rotten food from ANA or JAL. I paid 300yen for some ice cream on a flight from Naha to Haneda and it had to be about as old as the aircraft! Go get em Sea Shepard! Getting whale meat for the elite of Japan is costing us a lot of good will from the other nations. The whales have a right to a long life and if the whalers had their way they would hunt them until there are no more just to make a profit today.
itcher74 at 03:11 AM JST - 28th December

But they clearly strongly believe that what they are doing is morally right. The whalers are operating legally, but morally? Hunting whales under false pretense? Even though Sea Shepherd is acting outside the law, I think they're doing the right thing. They're like Batman!

Like Batman. hmmm. Right. Sea Shepherd´s actions are motivated by cultural prejudice. Japanese cultural prejudice. Why does Sea Shepherd go all the way down to Antarctica to stop Japanese hunting whales which are not endangered at the same time ignore other whales which are far more endangered than the whales Japanese are hunting? USA and Canada are driving the Right whale to extinction. They are killed by ship strikes. If they want to save the whales they could save them in their own back yard. They should change slogans of their movement from Save the whales to Death to Japanese whalers. I am sure they could get many grumpy expats filled with hate because they are stuck in Japan to join.

The Sea Shepherd campaigns are only symbolic but have a good marketing value. It looks better to see photos of these so-called courageous sailors fighting the evil hunters when the hunt which Japan carries out has any impact on the whale stock. Sea Shepherd would not get anywhere as near as many members and support if people knew that the prime reason to why whales are getting endangered is not because they are hunted by Japanese but fishing nets and ship strikes. Better to keep the public uneducated, after all it´s business. To pretend to care about saving the whales.
Airion at 05:42 AM JST - 28th December

UnagiDon- I don't think we disagree on that point. International law is clear, and Sea Shepherd is clearly breaking the law. But morality is indeed subjective, and just because international law is law doesn't mean it's absolutely morally sound.

itcher74- Those are important points about how Japanese whaling isn't actually endangering the survival of whales. I'm not necessarily against whaling. Responsible whaling would be better than all the overfishing going on, and ecologically more sound than growing tons of meat, assuming people would actually eat whale. That people now generally don't want to eat all that whale is part of the problem.

The problem, I think, is that the Japanese are whaling under a false pretense. While they are legally whaling for "research," the reality is they're whaling for the sake of whaling. Or rather, for the sake of business (I don't buy the cultural argument). If the operation was judged on the reality of the situation (whaling for profit), it would not be allowed. So there's an injustice there. It's legal, but by most reasoning, it should be illegal. It's on those grounds that I think Sea Shepherd is doing the right thing. I think the Sea Shepherd is acting partly due to this injustice, but also because they're simply against whaling itself (which I'm not necessarily against).
itcher74 at 07:04 AM JST - 28th December

IWC has guidelines. And Japan is using IWC guidelines to call their hunt scientific because that is the only way for Japan to be able to hunt whales. The reason why Japan has to call their hunt scientific is because years ago Japan did not file an objection to the Sanctuaries. A whaling ban from 1982 was to be reevaluated in 1993 it did but IWC voted against lifting the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. Because Iceland, Norway filed some objection to IWC unlike Japan the 2 countries were not leagaly bound by IWC decisions.Now Japan can hunt whales only if they say for Scientific Reasons but they have in the past tried to resume commercial whaling but have been voted down.

Countries will need to discuss what IWC is about and what the purpose of this group is. Countries are just going in circles, Sea Shepherd should do something better such as saving the whales that needs to be saved. Imagine someone would start a humanitarian organization like Red Cross. They start it to help people in Somailia but they open up an office in Mexico and people are thinking that is a great idea.
kwatt at 11:01 PM JST - 28th December

airion - I see your thinking, but there are rules, agreements, law, etc in the world that Everybody must follow, otherwise we all never get things organized well. Violences make more violences and violences do not solve anything. Look at history. Does your country accept violences if you can not do legally? Do you teach kids violences? If you are not safisfied with rules or laws, better change it or ammend it to make it to work well. We do it that way. Paul Watson will never try to ammend IWC rules. We are supposed to be educated people.
bakabaka at 11:08 AM JST - 29th December

good for Sea Shepherd.!
motytrah at 11:43 AM JST - 30th December

Interpol has already issues arrest warrants to Sea Shepherd members but not Japanese whalers. It means that sea Shephers activities are illeagal but not Japanese.

Not really. Interpol isn't a law enforcement agency. As much as TV and movies would like to show them as having their own investigators, they don't. All that means is the J-Police sent a red notice for the Sea Shepard crew to interpol. A red notice is a REQUEST for arrest so that the requesting country can petition the local jurisdiction for extradition.

Neither the UK, nor the US is going to honor that request as there is little chance they would be extradited. At most the red notice means they would face some minor hassle in customs. Not that there's much in the way of customs for commercial sea crews coming into port.
Papawhale at 09:50 PM JST - 2nd January

Yeah, I'd like to see someone try to arrest Capt Watson. He and the Sea Shepherds are protecting whales from brutal slaughter while the arrogance of whalers and their supporters is outta control. Calling whales "stock" f'rinstance...who gave you the right to consider intelligent animals like whales "stock"? Arrogance an hubris backed by violence on whales will not be tolerated.
bootspur at 10:23 AM JST - 25th July

The Members of the Steve Irwin have been attacking the Nishan Maru, and the harpoon ships with Non Toxic butyric acid a well KNOWN bad smelling agent in an attempt to foul the decks of the ships and stop whaling for a few hours...

To date the Sea Shepard has been using non-violent methods of trying to stop whaling.

The whalers on the other hand are using 5 Cm nut's that are used for securing large bolts for the purpose of fastening large machinery. A person could be killed if struck on the temple of the skull.

Why is EVERY other nation on Earth prohibited form killing whales yet Japanese are able to, but only if they LIE by calling their whaling ships Research Facilities, with the whales being what they research...
bootspur at 10:36 AM JST - 25th July

Itcher74, thats a lame defense, there is a big, big difference between the occasional accidental STRIKE an kill of a whale, versus hunting them, can't you at least see that?

This is NOT cultural, if it were cultural then when the new IWC ban was implemented in the 1980's the JAPANESE Government, and her people would have cried bloody murder that the world is attempting to dictate Japanese commerce, OR something like that...

Look the killing of whales as to stop, of course I can think of a thousand other things that must stop as well, but the topic in front of us is the killing of whales ...