Sea Shepherd Activists Protect Whales in Antarctic Waters

By David Nickarz

I felt a large jolt as the Kaiko Maru collided with our ship, the Robert Hunter. I was almost thrown into the large, spinning propeller shaft while doing my rounds in the deepest part of the engine room of the Robert Hunter. As the ship heaved to port I pulled my way along the railing that protected me from the propeller shaft. I was surprised at this turn of events because only a few minutes earlier Captain Cornelissen had told me that we were not going to ram any whaling ships this year. Only after I came up on deck did I realize that the whaling ship had rammed us in an attempt to get away from the Farley Mowat—the second ship in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s fleet patrolling the Antarctic waters for Japanese whalers.

We had left Melbourne, Australia 42 days earlier to search for the outlaw whaling fleet. Our goal was to find the whaling fleet and shut it down. The Sea Shepherd’s mission is to sail the oceans to enforce international marine conservation law—not to protest or to document illegal whaling, but to stop it.

“In the last 30 years, we have never actually seen a whale being killed because when we show up the whalers run away,” said Captain Paul Watson at a recent fundraiser in Melbourne.

“No, we aren’t Greenpeace,” is what I’ve had to tell most people who ask about us. Paul Watson was one of the founders of Greenpeace but left to start the Sea Shepherds in the late ‘70s due to a difference of opinion about tactics.

Rather than protest and bear witness like Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherds get physical and sink whaling vessels and ram illegal fishing ships on the high seas. Although they’ve never hurt anyone their actions are at the very edge of non-violence.

Paul Watson has been the captain of the Farley Mowat for almost every campaign the Sea Shepherds have launched over the last 30 years. This year was different because the Sea Shepherds had two large ships on the same campaign—The Farley Mowat skippered by Paul Watson and the new ship the Robert Hunter skippered by Alex Cornelissen. Famous Canadian author Farley Mowat is the International Chair of the organization and the late Robert Hunter was a respected Canadian conservation leader.

This was my fifth mission with the Sea Shepherds. I spent most of my time on the Farley Mowat, sailing to the Antarctic in 2002, to the Galapagos Islands in 2000 to establish protection for the marine park reserve, to the North sea to protect Pilot whales, to the East coast of Canada to stop the Seal Hunt in 2005 and to the Washington coast in 1998 to protect Grey Whales.

I spent all of my time in the engine room of the Farley Mowat but this time I was transferred to the Robert Hunter and was excited at the prospect of learning about a new ship. Although the Robert Hunter was built in 1975, it seemed brand new compared to the Farley Mowat which was launched in the late 1950’s.

The Japanese whaling fleet, wholly owned by the Japanese government, is killing whales in the Antarctic whale sanctuary. The Southern Ocean Sanctuary was established in 1994 by the International Whaling Commission to provide protection to whales from commercial whaling. This year, in addition to their ‘quota’ of Piked Whales, for the first time Japan will be targeting endangered Humpback and Fin whales, which is in contravention of the Convention in Trade in Endangered Species (CITIES).

Japanese authorities say that they are doing scientific whaling—that is, taking DNA samples as well as establishing the age and stomach contents of the whales they kill. The information that they gather in the name of science can easily be obtained by non-lethal methods. The façade of science disappears when they sell the whale meat in markets back home. This is expressly forbidden by the rules of the IWC, and has been condemned by many nations around the world.

Most of the condemnations are not backed up with any real economic sanctions. There is simply no political will to actually stop the whaling by the governments of Australia and New Zealand.

This is where the Sea Shepherds come in. After our collision with the Kaiko Maru we made conservation history—we actually apprehended a whaling ship. The Kaiko Maru had trouble with their engines after the chase and stopped running. With the two Sea Shepherd ships to either side the Kaiko Maru sent out a distress call. Our two ships immediately responded, offering assistance, as is our responsibility under marine law. Not surprisingly, our offers were refused..

Only three days earlier we had come upon the whaling fleet at two am during a beautiful Antarctic sunrise. The crew was very excited after weeks of searching and drudgery of the ship’s routine. We sent out our helicopter to confirm that it was, in fact, the whalers. We began the chase the Nisshin Maru, the factory ship where all the whales are taken to be butchered. If we could disable this ship, then we would shut down the whole fleet.

“We strongly recommend that you return to your nearest port of call,” said Peter Hammarstedt, first officer of the Robert Hunter over the ship’s radio. “This is not a protest action, this is a law enforcement action.”.

Our recently purchased ship was able to keep up with the Nisshin Maru—something the Farley Mowat wasn’t able to do during last year’s hunt.

We quickly caught up with the Nisshin Maru and some of the crew heaved stink bombs and smoke canisters onto their decks. This was done to ruin any whale meat on the deck and to contaminate the deck to stink for future whale butchering.

We drew a thick rope line behind our ship and ran it across the bow of the Nisshin Maru in an attempt to slow the ship down. It was truly a David and Goliath effort as the 1,000 ton Robert Hunter struggled to slow down the 8,000 ton Nisshin Maru. Our goal was to slow it enough to get the slower Farley Mowat close enough to ram it up the slipway and get it stuck there. The pirate whaler would then have to return to port to get it removed. We never got the Farley Mowat close enough to do this, due to its slow speed.

There’s always next year.