Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Antarctic Ocean Heats Up - Sea Shepherd vesus Japanese Whalers


The latest run-in between Japanese whalers and anti-whaling Sea Shepherd activists has been nothing if not dramatic.

Two of the Sea Shepherd crew - an Australian and a Briton - were grabbed as they attempted to board the Japanese whaler. A report from The Times of London claims the two were mistreated:

"The incarceration of Giles Lane and Benjamin Potts, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, follows their attempts to board the Yushin Maru No 2 — a vessel engaged on Japan’s hugely controversial “scientific” pursuit of minke and fin whales.

According to their fellow activists, watching from a helicopter, the two men endured a two-hour ordeal during which they were strapped to the mast of the Japanese vessel.
With the ship now steaming away, Paul Watson, the captain of the protestors’ flagship, the Steve Irwin, told The Times that it was now “very hard to imagine getting our two missing crew members back any time soon”. He called on the Governments of Britain and Australia to demand the immediate return of its citizens."


Hours earlier an Australian court ruled Japan's whale hunt illegal and ordered the ships to leave the Antarctic hunting grounds.

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