Sea Shepherd heads for Antarctica to defend whales

The Sea Shepherd team doing their best to defend whales in Antarctica, and Brisbane's Courier Mail (Australia) has run a terrific article, by Phil Bartsch, about the effort. It appeared in the Friday, November 24 edition of the paper headed, "To war over whales."

It opens:
"Blood is about to be spilled into the icy blue waters off Antarctica again – much of it within the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

"But not if Captain Paul Watson can help prevent it.
"'What's the point of having a whale sanctuary if you can kill whales in it?' argues the controversial founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

"'I'm not going to stand around and do nothing and watch these magnificent creatures being slaughtered. The time for conferences and meetings and mail-outs and petitions is over.'"

We read:
"He is challenging the Australian Government to get up from behind its desk and physically stand its ground to protect its territorial waters.

"He also accuses Greenpeace, which he co-founded and then left in 1977 to form Sea Shepherd, of doing nothing to stop the slaughter in the Antarctic for the past 15 years except produce whale 'snuff flicks'."

We read that Watson has been branded an eco-terrorist and "speaks openly of ramming and ripping open the hulls of his enemy – the whaling ships – like a can opener."

However, "Operating under the United Nations Charter for Nature, which was ratified by the UN General Assembly in 1982 and empowers non-government organisations and individuals to uphold international conservation law, he has never been convicted of an offence for his actions." And "In almost 30 years of shutting down many whaling and illegal fishing operations nobody has ever been injured." The article tells us that's because Sea Shepherd will only sink ships dockside with no one on board. Still, "At last count, Watson had sunk a total of nine whaling ships."

The article discusses the pros and cons of legal action to stop Japan's abuse of scientific whaling, since a legal loss would weaken the position of Australia and other countries who wish to defend the whales. While options are being discusses, Watson and the Sea Shepherd crew head into Antarctica.

Watson says, "We're pirates of compassion in pursuit of pirates of greed and profit," and also "You find me one whale that disagrees with what we're doing and I won't do it again."

It is a terrific article you can read at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20815040-5003416,00.html
OR http://tinyurl.com/yysvnk . At the bottom of that page is a place for comments that says,

"We welcome your comments on this story. Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Please provide your full name. We also require a working email address - not for publication, but for verification. The location field is optional."

Please add your comments of support. And check out http://www.SeaShepherd.org to learn more.


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