The strength of an ecosystem is dependent upon the diversity of species within it, and the strength of a movement is dependent upon the diversity of approaches within it. And so, if the environmental and conservation movement is going to be strong, it is going to be strong because of that diversity. Sea Shepherd is a necessary tool in this movement. We provide diversity in our conservation approach — and we make this movement strong and successful.

2012 is our 35th year of operations. When I founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977, I had hoped we’d never make it to this anniversary. You see, we are in the business of putting ourselves out of business. Unfortunately, as long as cowardice, greed, and pride prevail and poachers think their actions will have no effect on the future of this Planet Ocean, our cause is a vital one. Please support Sea Shepherd and help us get results through direct intervention.

For the oceans,

Captain Paul Watson
Founder and President

CLICK ON THE WHALE TO THE RIGHT OF THIS PAGE FOR MORE SEA SHEPHERD

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Last year, an industrial fishing vessel was caught inside the Galapagos Marine Reserve with 350+ dead sharks. The case made international headlines, not only for the illegal capture of a protected species in a marine reserve, but also for the poor response it received from the local judiciary, which ultimately annulled all its proceedings.

In a rare move by the Galapagos judicial system, the judge who was responsible for the outcome of this case has been suspended and interdisciplinary investigations into the case will take place for the next three months.

For more on this ……click on the Whale to the right of this page

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Sea Shepherd Unveils Interceptor Vessel to Target Illegal Whaling

At a Hollywood fundraiser on Saturday night, we shared with supporters our desire to add the Ocean Adventurer to our fleet for our upcoming 2010-2011 Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign, Operation No Compromise.

The 12-year-old, 115-foot, stabilized monohull vessel would fill the role of fast interceptor, replacing the Ady Gil, the vessel that the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru No. 2 deliberately rammed and destroyed on January 6th of this year.

This expedition will be our seventh campaign to oppose the illegal activities of the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean and we hope it will be our last season. During the past six campaigns, we have saved the lives of nearly 2,000 whales and exposed illegal Japanese whaling activities to the entire world. Last season, we were able to save more whales than the Japanese whalers were able to kill. Five hundred and twenty-eight (528) whales are alive and swimming in the sea because our supporters enabled us to intervene by underwriting our ships and crews.

Each year, because of our supporters, we have become stronger and more effective. Through patience, determination and persistence, we are driving the Japanese whaling fleet into debt and closer to the day they will retreat from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

We are confident that with your help, we will see our most effective campaign ever with Operation No Compromise. Our ships, the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker, are currently being prepared for the campaign. We have recruited the best crew we can assemble. Our only challenge now is to raise the funds for the Ocean Adventurer.

With three ships, we will once again be able to track and intervene against the poachers in the Southern Ocean for the entire season. Our goal is to save more whales this coming season than we did during the last season and to shut down whaling in the Southern Ocean permanently.

Please help us save whales by supporting Operation No Compromise and make a donation today!

donate now and/or read more………..

seashepherd.org

New Interceptor added to Sea Shepherd Fleet

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Faeroe Islands: New Photos Show that Bloodbath in Leynar Claimed Four Pregnant Females

Teaching their children not to respect life………good job people

Bloodbath in Leynar Claimed Four Pregnant Females IMG 2686On August 5, 2010, a pod of 80 pilot whales was cruelly slaughtered on the beach of Leynar in the Danish Faeroe Islands. Once again, the grind was merciless, as even pregnant females fell victim to the knives of the Faeroe Islanders. Every summer, hundreds—sometimes thousands—of pilot whales are deliberately stranded before their spinal cords are severed with knives in a centuries-old bloody ritual.

Now that Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Undercover Operative, Sofia Jonsson, has safely left the Faeroes, Sea Shepherd is able to release shocking images that show that little has changed in the Faeroe Islands since the grind in Klaksvik that Sea Shepherd documented two weeks earlier.

Sea Shepherd activist and marine biologist Sofia Jonsson switched out with veteran Peter Hammarstedt after his cover was compromised in Klaksvik. When Jonsson heard news of the bloodshed in Leynar, she immediately headed to the town of Kivik, where the cetaceans had been transported.

According to Jonsson, “When I arrived, I noticed that several pregnant females had been killed, but their babies were nowhere to be seen. The fetuses had all been moved into either big plastic containers or black garbage bags. I realized that they were hiding them from any prying eyes. I was still able to count at least four dead babies.”

In Klaksvik, Sea Shepherd was able to document several cases where fetuses had been cut directly out of their mothers’ wombs, left to rot on the docks while still attached to the umbilical cord. The images received worldwide attention.

“There was a forklift on the docks that arranged the pilot whales in neat rows,” said Jonsson. “As the whalers were cutting up one of the female pilot whales, they realized that she was pregnant. The whalers asked the forklift driver to turn the cetacean around so that they could cut the fetus out without being seen by the public.”

Bloodbath in Leynar Claimed Four Pregnant Females

In addition to images that show the indiscriminate nature of the grind, Jonsson was also able to document that several whales had multiple wounds to the head, showing that their deaths were far from painless; and she was able to photograph disturbing images of children partaking in the grind.

Jonsson stated, “I saw children helping their parents cut the whales up. I saw children sitting on whales; their idea of play was to make carvings in the blubber of the dead pilot whales. In the Faeroes, slaughtering cetaceans is definitely a family affair.”

The grind in Leynar took place before the discovery of the Sea Shepherd vessel Golfo Azzuro by Faeroese authorities. Since then, no pilot whales have been killed in the Faeroe Islands. Sea Shepherd is using noise deterrents to keep the pilot whales away from the Ferocious Islands.

Visit our special Operation Grind Stop website and help us stop the slaughter of pilot whales in the Faeroe

http://seashepherd.org/news

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Sea Shepherd’s Watson on Interpol’s most wanted

By North asia correspondent Mark Willacy, staff
Written by: ABC News: Mark Smith
The request to place Paul Watson on the list was issued by Japan.

Interpol has placed the head of anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson, on its international wanted list.

The request to place him on the list was issued by Japan.

Interpol has issued a so-called blue notice, asking national police forces to pass on information about Mr Watson’s whereabouts and activities.

But it has not issued a notice requesting his arrest.

The Sea Shepherd leader has harassed the Japanese whaling fleet for the past few years, limiting the number of whales caught for so-called scientific research.

Despite international condemnation, Japan hunts whales under a loophole in a global moratorium.

Fewer than 5 per cent of Japanese admit to even eating whale meat.

New Zealand anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune appeared in a Tokyo court lat month on five charges related to his boarding of a Japanese whaling ship in the Antarctic earlier this year.

Bethune has been charged with trespass, vandalism, obstructing commercial activity, being armed with a weapon and, most seriously, assault causing injury.

The assault charge stems from allegations Bethune threw tubs of rancid butter onto one of the whaling ships and in the process slightly injured a Japanese crewman.

He pleaded guilty to four of the charges but denied the assault.

If convicted he faces up to 15 years in jail.

The charges arose after Bethune tried to make a citizen’s arrest on the whaling ship’s captain and was also trying to serve him with a multi-million-dollar damage bill.

Meanwhile, Greenland’s indigenous peoples have won the right to hunt 27 humpback whales, capping three years of acrimonious debate within the 88-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC).

The self-ruled Danish territory can now kill and consume nine of the giant marine mammals each year through 2012, with its existing quota of more than 200 minke and fin whales cut by the same number.

The decision – greeted with applause – came on the closing day of the IWC’s annual meeting in Agadir, Morocco, where a big-tent compromise deal between pro- and anti-whaling nations collapsed earlier in the week.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/26/2937694.htm?section=justin

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SPREAD THE WORD

DON’T BUY JAPANESE

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO STOP THE JAPANESE SLAUGHTERING WHALES AND DOLPHINS BY NOT BUYING JAPANESE MANUFACTURED GOODS.

BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS.

Sorry to put such a graphic picture up, but you need to see what is really going on.

They kill in the guise of research but are really selling the Whale,Dolphin, Shark, Turtle etc meat………..They receive anywhere from half a million to over a million dollars for one whale, dont tell me they are doing it for research. Spread the word about the killing of whales and dolphins by the Japanese and suggest to your friends and relatives that boycotting Japanese manufactured products could have a huge impact on whaling and dolphin killing if it achieved enough support behind it. DON’T BUY JAPANESE. Hit ‘em where it hurts – in the pocket.
SPREAD THE WORD

Taken from John Martin Bradley. Cape Town. June 24, 2010.
via Facebook

ADMIN NOTE: Also please support Sea Shepherd who go out every season and follow the Whaling slaughter ships and disrupt the killing and harvesting of the Whales as much as possible. Sea Shepherd is an organization that badly needs your support, whether it be emails of support or if possible donations, no matter how small, it adds up. The contact button to Sea Shepherd is at the right of this page….with obviously….a Whale on it. Thank you.

I need to point out however, that Captain Paul Watson doesn’t want the entire Japanese people/businesses punished as is suggested in this boycott. He feels companies that financially benefit in some way from the killing of whales are the culprits not the generalized Japanese people.

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Maritime Justice in the Land of Oz
Response from Captain Paul Watson on the Australian Conclusion on the Destruction of the Sea Shepherd Vessel Ady Gil.

We just received the report from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) entitled “Fact finding report into the reported collision involving the New Zealand registered craft Ady Gil and the Japan registered whaling ship Shonan Maru No. 2 in the Southern Ocean on January 6th, 2010.”

I did predict months ago that the investigation would come to nothing because Japan would refuse to cooperate as they did in 2007 when they rammed our vessel Robert Hunter.

And sure enough, the conclusion from the AMSA is that the investigation could not be completed because Japan refused to cooperate with the investigation.

That’s like the police saying, “well we caught the bank robber on video and we had plenty of witnesses BUT hey, he refused to cooperate so we dropped the case.”

We have a 22-page report on why they could not make a decision on the case.

On page four, the report states that the incident did not occur in Australia’s territorial seas. Yet our GPS position from the Bob Barker only a few hundred meters away has the position at 64 Degrees 2 minutes and .835 seconds South and 143 Degrees 5 minutes and .52 seconds East. This is inside the Australian Antarctic Economic Territorial Zone.

The report said that the investigation was hampered by lack of witnesses, yet the entire incident was witnessed by six crewmembers on the Ady Gil and numerous crewmembers from Sea Shepherd and television film crew onboard the nearby Bob Barker.

The report said that the investigation was hampered by the “quality” of the video yet there were three video angles, two of which taken by professional cameramen, one on the Ady Gil and the other on the Bob Barker. The third angle was taken from the Japanese vessel Shonan Maru 2. This means that there was video from the ship struck, the Ady Gil, from the ship striking, the Shonan Maru 2 and position of cameraman observer on the Bob Barker. There have probably been very few collisions in maritime history with three perfect angles caught on film. To say that the quality of the film was poor is ridiculous. The film has been seen on high definition television by millions of people.

The report says that the investigation was hampered by the difficulty of interviewing witnesses yet all six crew on the Ady Gil were interviewed.

For the rest of the article……….
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-100510-2.html
OR click on the whale button on the lower right hand side of the page and it will take you to the Sea Shepherd newsletter.

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