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Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2014 6:36:27 GMT
Sea Shepherd claim they are being targeted by whalers who slaughtered four of the creatures earlier this week Japanese hunters who slaughtered four whales earlier this week have turned violent against the activists trying to stop them. Sea Shepherd, the organisation who chased the hunters from the Antarctic sanctuary, claim the whalers have become “aggressive and violent”. Director of Sea Shepherd Ireland Sue Anthony told the Irish Mirror whaling vessels had recently tailed their ships into a protected zone in Australia. The whale harpoon ship the Yushi Maru No3 was trailing the activist boat the Bob Barker, but stopped one mile short of entering Australian waters. Sue Anthony of Sea Shepherd Australian Environmental Minister Greg Hunt contacted Japanese authorities over the impending invasion of the Australian whale sanctuary, forcing them to end their pursuit. But Sue claimed the Nisshin Maru, involved in the slaughter of whales in the Antarctic sanctuary on Monday, had rammed activist boats in the Great Southern Ocean. The Nisshin Maru is the main factory ship which captures and slaughters the sea creatures, making them into what Sue describes as “meal size portions”. he added whalers and activists have become embroiled in an annual battle in recent years, as the Japanese ships return to hunt every whaling season. Sue said: “This happens annually. They go down every year and they try to kill up to 1000 whales. Every year we’re there trying to stop them. Last year we were extremely successful.” Nisshin Maru attacks MV Bob Barker Sue said such aggression between the two parties has only developed in recent years. She added: “At one point, three or four years ago they would see us and run. They actually left and went back to Japan. Then after that, they came back and they’ve become extremely aggressive. They’ve actually sank one of our ships. They retaliate very violently by trying to ram us.”
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Post by Admin on Mar 31, 2014 21:58:14 GMT
Japan will no longer be permitted to hunt whales in the southern Pacific under the dubious pretense of scientific research. But the battle over whaling isn't over.. The science in Japan’s “scientific” whaling program has always been a little, well, questionable. Commercial whaling is essentially illegal for all nations that remain part of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Norway and Iceland, two countries that continue to whale, get around the IWC’s 1986 moratorium by simply rejecting it. Japan, which is still a member of the IWC, has sidestepped the moratorium for years through subtler means, establishing a research program that allows the country to kill 3,600 minke whales since the studies began in 2005. Exactly what scientific information Japan’s whaling fleet is gathering through legal slaughter has never been clear—though what’s not in doubt is the destination of the whale meat taken in the hunt, most of which ends up in the handful of restaurants and markets in Japan that still serve whale. The Japanese government obviously disagrees with the decision, but Foreign Ministry spokesperson Noriyuki Shikata told reporters today that Japan will “abide by the ruling of the court”—meaning that for now, at least, Japan’s annual Antarctic hunt is off. For environmentalists who have fought Japanese whaling for years in international courts, the court of public opinion and sometimes on the oceans itself—as seen in the reality TV show Whale Wars—Monday’s decision was a moment to celebrate. The court’s ruling doesn’t mean that all Japanese whaling will immediately cease. The country has a smaller scientific program in the northern Pacific that will likely now be challenged under the same grounds. The court also left the door open for Japan to resume scientific whaling if it can redesign its program, as Tokyo has claimed that it needs data to monitor the impact of whales on its fishing industry. And Japan has always held out the possibility that it could simply withdraw from the IWC altogether, so that it would no longer be bound by the commission’s decisions.
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Post by Admin on Apr 19, 2014 21:06:03 GMT
Japan will target fewer whales when its Pacific hunt begins next week and will observe them in the Antarctic next season with the aim of resuming full-fledged commercial whaling, the fisheries minister said Friday. The announcement underscored that Japan hasn't abandoned its plans to continue whaling in both oceans for research purposes, an allowed exception to a global ban on commercial whaling. Last month, the International Court of Justice ordered Japan to suspend its Antarctic program because it was virtually commercial, not scientific as Japan had contended. The annual spring hunt along Japan's northern coast is to begin next week, and the distant northern Pacific expedition in May, with another coastal hunt planned in the autumn. Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said the Pacific catch target was being slashed by nearly half — to about 210 from the current 380. "We will continue our research hunts aimed at collecting scientific data and seek to resume commercial whaling," Hayashi told reporters in a hastily called briefing. "We re-examined the content of our research programs and came up with the plans that give the maximum consideration to the ruling, and we plan to fully explain that to other countries." Hayashi said Japan will limit next season's Antarctic program to whale observation, but plans to return to the southern seas with hunting plans under a new program for the 2015-2016 season. During the 2013-1014 season, Japan caught 251 minke whales in the Antarctic, or just a quarter of its quota, and 246 others in the Pacific. The court said Japan produced little actual research under its supposedly scientific program and failed to explain why it needed to kill so many whales in order to study them. The ruling left Japan the option of retooling its whaling program to be more scientific, though any new Antarctic plan would face intense scrutiny. Experts say the ruling could be a convenient, face-saving solution for Japan to scale back the research whaling as it struggles with growing stockpile of whale meat and escalating anti-whaling protests in the Antarctic.
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Post by Admin on Apr 13, 2018 18:32:06 GMT
The mass slaughter of pilot whales in the inlets and beaches of the Faroe Islanders has been greeted with widespread outrage. But after befriending a group of Faroe Islands fishermen, filmmaker Mike Day gained unprecedented access to the whale hunt on the remote islands – populated by the ancestors of Vikings. His feature length documentary, which has just opened in cinemas, doesn’t take sides in the whaling controversy. Instead it highlights a far more universal threat to the environment – polluted oceans.
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Post by Admin on Dec 30, 2018 18:31:57 GMT
The Japanese government has made good on years of threats by bolting the International Whaling Commission (IWC), but its decision may also offer a way out of tensions that looked inextricable. Japan, which calls whaling part of its cultural heritage, said on Wednesday it would withdraw from the seven-decade-old commission which since 1986 has banned the commercial killing of the ocean giants. Australia and New Zealand have been outraged by Japan's incursions into waters they consider a whale sanctuary and activists harassed the whalers in often dangerous chases. Patrick Ramage, a veteran watcher of IWC negotiations, called the announcement an "elegantly Japanese solution" that looks on the surface like defiance but will likely mean a much smaller hunt. "What this provides is a face-saving way out of high seas whaling. And it is difficult to see that as anything other than good news for whales and the commission established to manage and conserve them," Ramage, programme director for marine conservation at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, told AFP news agency.
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