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Water - National News - December 2008 |
Australian Capital Territory; New South Wales; Northern Territory; Queensland; South Australia; Tasmania; Victoria; Western Australia
29/12/08 Activists 'disrupting' Japanese whalers AFP
28/12/08 Activists 'disrupting' Japanese whalers AAP
23/12/08 Whalers 'sighted in Antarctica' Andrew Darby The Age
December 29, 2008 - 8:50AM AAP
Militant environmental campaigners say they have prevented Japanese whalers harpooning any of the giant sea mammals for nine days by engaging them in a 1,000 nautical mile high seas pursuit.
Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel Steve Irwin, says his crew has chased the Japanese fleet through ice, rough seas and fog off Antarctica.
"I don't understand where they are running to, they are still going east. We've chased them over 1,000 (nautical) miles (1,852km) now," Watson told AFP on Monday.
"And they are still going east and we're still following and ... they haven't killed any whales in nine days."
Watson would not say how close his vessel was to the Japanese boats but activists on board the Steve Irwin were on Friday able to pelt stink bombs at the Kaiko Maru.
Around 10 bottles of rotten butter and 15 of a mixture of methyl cellulose and indelible dye were tossed at the ship during an encounter in which the two vessels struck each other without causing serious damage.
A Japanese government-backed whaling body claimed that the activists' ship rammed into the left side of the Japanese vessel, damaging a bulwark, while the Sea Shepherd accused the whaling boat of steering into it.
Watson insisted that his group, which is in its fifth year of attempting to harass Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean, was behaving legally.
"Our critics should just shut up because we've been doing this for five years, we haven't been charged with anything, we've not broken any laws, we've not injured anybody," he said of the 24-hour pursuit.
"We are opposing people who are targeting endangered whales in an established whale sanctuary, in violation of a global moratorium on whaling."
Japan kills hundreds of whales a year in the name of scientific research, getting round an international moratorium on commercial whaling, although much of the meat still ends up on dinner tables.
Whale meat is a delicacy in Japan and Tokyo accuses critics of insensitivity to its whaling culture.
2008 AFP
December 28, 2008 - 8:21PM
Anti-whaling campaigners say they have driven the Japanese whaling fleet from Australian Antarctic waters and into New Zealand's.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ship Steve Irwin located the Japanese fleet on December 20 and has been pursuing it since, society founder and Steve Irwin captain Paul Watson said in a statement.
"We have chased the whalers for over 800 miles (1,280 km) since last Saturday through bad weather and heavy ice conditions," he said.
"They have fled eastward and they are continuing eastward and we are on their tail and we will keep on their tail."
The crew of the Steve Irwin had close encounters with two vessels in the Japanese fleet and observed a third ship from the air, but had not closed with the fleet because it had not stopped or whaled since December 20, Mr Watson said.
The fleet is now in New Zealand's EEZ, in waters off the Ross Dependency.
"What is now good news for the whales in Australian waters is now bad news for the whales in the waters south of New Zealand," Mr Watson said.
"They are still targeting endangered and protected whales in the waters of an established international whale sanctuary and thus they are still in violation of international conservation law and acting under the principles of the United Nations World Charter for Nature, we will continue to pursue, harass and intervene against their blatantly illegal lethal assaults on the whales."
The Steve Irwin has fuel and provisions to continue the pursuit until mid-January, before it will be forced to re-fuel in New Zealand, he said.
The statement comes a day after Japan's whale research body, The Institute of Cetacean Research, said the crew of the Steve Irwin had endangered a whaling crew and scientists on the whale=spotting vessel Kaiko Maru by throwing bottles of acid and ramming it.
The Japanese whaling fleet plans to kill about 1,000 whales this summer, using a loophole in a 1986 global whaling moratorium that allows "lethal research" on the ocean giants.
The Australian government has appealed for calm on the high seas.
2008 AAP
Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru No. 2 crosses the bow of Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin in the Southern Ocean on Saturday.
Photo: Adam Lau
Andrew Darby The Age
December 23, 2008
AN ANTI-WHALING group says it has proof the Japanese whaling fleet has been operating in the historic heart of Australian Antarctica, Commonwealth Bay.
The Sea Shepherd group's leader, Paul Watson, said a helicopter found the factory ship Nisshin Maru in the bay shortly before he first engaged the fleet at the weekend.
Commonwealth Bay, due south of Tasmania, was the stopping-off point for early Australian expeditions by Douglas Mawson, which led the country to claim 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent, and declare a whale sanctuary off its shores.
A volunteer Australian expedition arrived there on Sunday to continue conservation work on the oldest Australian site in Antarctica, the National Heritage-listed Mawson's Huts.
Captain Watson said the whaling fleet was moving back and forth in the bay when the helicopter photographed it last Thursday.
"The observation was taken from our helicopter at 3000 feet from 30 miles, so we knew the whalers had not seen us," Captain Watson said.
Federal Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said whaling in Australian waters as detailed by Sea Shepherd would be an embarrassment to the Government. Environment Minister Peter Garrett had said a key reason for not sending a vessel to monitor the fleet was that the whalers would be working mainly in the New Zealand waters of the Ross Sea.
Mr Hunt called on the Government to confirm the location of the whalers, and admit Mr Garrett had got it wrong.
"There are now reports Japanese whalers are roaming unchecked in Australian territorial waters and we have no one out there keeping an eye on them," Mr Hunt said.
Japan does not recognise the Australian territorial claim, which is set aside under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty. Neither does Tokyo recognise the whale sanctuary.
A spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, Glenn Inwood, said the Australian Government had signed away its rights to Antarctica when it agreed to the treaty, "so really there isn't an Australian Antarctic Territory. It belongs to everybody."
Mr Inwood refused to comment on the movements of the whaling fleet.
Captain Watson said last night his ship the Steve Irwin was making its way through pack ice about 40 nautical miles from the whaling fleet.
A spokeswoman for acting Environment Minister Penny Wong was unable to comment.