Greenpeace claims that its vessel, Esperanza, has chased Japanese whalers out of their southern ocean hunting grounds disrupting plans to take up to 1,000 whales. From The Guardian:
"The Greenpeace vessel, the Esperanza, chased the main Japanese ship, the Nisshin Maru, through hundreds of miles of thick fog after spotting the whaling fleet on Saturday, the group said. The fleet's catcher ships fled in another direction and will be unable to hunt as long as they are separated from the Nisshin Maru, which processes and stores captured whales.
"Now they are out of the hunting grounds they should stay out," said Sakyo Noda, a Greenpeace campaigner from Japan.
Japan warned the protesters not to interfere with the whalers as they attempt to reach this year's quota of 935 minke and 50 endangered humpback whales. The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 but allows Japan to conduct hunts in the name of scientific research."
As the more restrained Greenpeace dogs the Japanese whalers, the much more aggressive Sea Shepherd Society's ship Irwin is closing in for what could be a more violent clash. From http://www.seashepherd.org/:
"I'm counting on Greenpeace to slow the poachers down until we can catch up. I'm hoping they can block some harpoons and harass them enough until we can arrive to shut the criminals down."
The Greenpeace ship is still under strict orders to not cooperate with Sea Shepherd but Captain Paul Watson is a founding father of Greenpeace and he has his sources.
"We know where they are," said Captain Watson. "So there really is no need for them to withhold their position from the media and the public."
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