Have a great New Year's Eve!

Hopefully 2015 is the year the world finally stops the barbaric slaughter of wildlife.

Removing a Weapon of Mass Ecological Destruction

The crew of the San Simon haul in illegally set gillnets set by toothfish poachers.

https://www.facebook.com/captpaulwatson/posts/10152872732810932

How Much is a Whale’s Life Worth?

“You have not lived until you have risked your life so that others may live.”
~ Captain Paul Watson

Captian Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd recently asked how much a whale's life is worth.

http://www.seashepherd.org/commentary-and-editorials/2014/12/23/how-much-is-a-whales-life-worth-679

Season's Greetings!

Court Rules Orangutan Held In Argentina Zoo Is 'Non-Human Person' And Can Be Freed

A Landmark Legal Decision!
This is a landmark decision and we need to continue on this course to achieve the same status for all primates, dolphins, whales and elephants. Self aware socially complex sentient beings deserve the right to not be enslaved. exploited and abused,

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/21/orangutan-argentina_n_6363582.html

China drafts first legislation in history to recognise animal welfare

China is inching towards pogress. A promising start, now to keep it up.

http://blog1.oceans-campus.com/wildbuzz-law/china-drafts-first-legislation-in-history-to-recognise-animal-welfare?utm_content=10603938&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Sea Shepherd calls for Australian intervention in Southern Ocean standoff

Come on Australia. Step up and kick them out of your waters!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/18/sea-shepherd-calls-for-australian-intervention-southern-ocean-standoff

Dolphin living alone for 30 years in Irish harbour spotted leaping next to boat

Humans can co-exist with dolphins!

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/11297166/Dolphin-living-alone-for-30-years-in-Irish-harbour-spotted-leaping-next-to-boat.html

How Greenpeace Wrecked One of the Most Sacred Places in the Americas

"TIME FOR CHANGES" plastered over a sacred site in Peru - how dumb can Greenpeace be? Here in New Zealand we call this "Over Kill"!! Greenpeace stay with what you know best and don't tamper with heritage sites to advertise your stupidity. We wonder, is your "Future  Renewable"? Think before you act!

http://gizmodo.com/how-greenpeace-wrecked-one-of-the-most-sacred-places-in-1669873583

SeaWorld CEO Jim Atchison To Step Down As Park Attendance Drops

So  the CEO is running away.

Just admit defeat and close the park!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/11/seaworld-ceo-jim-atchison_n_6311412.html

A Year After Blackfish, Tilikum The Orca Is Still Languishing In A Too-Small Tank

It's time to free Tilly.

Come on Sea World!

https://www.thedodo.com/a-year-after-blackfish-tilikum-578175002.html

Japan Vows to Resume Whaling for “Science”

 

Laws and treaties mean nothing to Japan as it prepares to go back to the Antarctic to kill 330 Minke whales each year for the next 12 years. The International Whaling Commission does not have the power to stop them - so get out and protest!

http://www.care2.com/causes/japan-vows-to-resume-whaling-for-science.html

The Faroese Seek to Suppress Dissent

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

In their quest to continue the barbaric slaughter of pilot whales and dolphins, Faroese lawmakers are looking at eroding their own democracy by banning Sea Shepherd from entering the Faroe Islands.

If they do, Sea Shepherd will find other means to disrupt the horrific slaughter of these intelligent, self aware, socially complex sentient beings. Our opposition to the slaughter will never cease. We will fight this horror on the water, in the courts and in the European Parliament until the Faroes comes to respect the sanctity of cetacean lives like the rest of Europe.

First this article states that Sea Shepherd is a threat to the Grindacrap. And then it states that Sea Shepherd had no effect. Last year between June and October over 1,300 whales and dolphins were massacred. This season while Sea Shepherd crew were on the ground and on the water, only 33 pilot whales were killed. When Sea Shepherd was there in 2011, no whales were killed that summer.
The facts speak for themselves and Sea Shepherd volunteers saved hundreds of lives no matter how the whalers deny this. And they are obviously afraid that Sea Shepherd will save more lives if they are looking at taking extremist measures to stop Sea Shepherd from entering the country.

It was amusing to read how people who viciously slaughter cetaceans, with their bodies covered in blood from spurting wounds as they slash and stab these creatures to death then call Sea Shepherd terrorists when not a single Sea Shepherd volunteer has ever injured a single whaler. Sea Shepherd crew were violently assaulted yet in the minds of the whale killers, preventing sentient beings from being ruthlessly massacred is terrorism.

However if they should succeed in enacting legislation to stop Sea Shepherd from entering the Faroes, there are other ways of effectively obstructing the killing of the pilot whales and dolphins.

Passion plus courage plus imagination are the ingredients required for innovating new strategies and tactics.

Read more here

Japan Has Become the Ocean Fool on the Issue of Whaling

by Captain Paul Watson

 

Japan has fooled all of the nations some of the time and still fools some of the nations some of the time but they can no longer fool all of the nations all of the time. Japanese "scientific" whaling is a fraud. It is a lie and it is a barbaric, inhumane flaunting of international law. Japanese whaling has been found to be in contempt of the Australian Federal Court. It has been condemned as a fraud by the International Court of Justice and it has not been sanctioned by the International Whaling Commission. And now it looks like the New York Times has made their position clear on the bogus research activities of the Japanese whalers. 

 

There will be no whale slaughter for the 2014/2015 season. Japan has set a target for 333 whales for the 2015/2016 season. They have not been able to get even that number due to interventions by Sea Shepherd Global ships over the last few years. They need at least 600 whales to break even so mass subsidies will continue to support this pathetic industry at the cost to Japanese taxpayers and to the shame of all Japanese citizens.

Japan want to continue killing whales for scientific research that simply is nothing more than research in name for the purpose of providing whale meat to people who do not wish to eat it and thus it is stored in warehouses for years at great expense with the hope that the people will change their minds forgetting that the only reason Japanese people ate whale meat in the first place is that after WW II they did not have any choice. It beat boiling leather shoes for soup.

Whaling and the dolphin slaughter are turning Japan into an embarrassment in the international community, a nation that kills what most of the rest of the world cherishes and respects.
People like Joji Morishita need to realize that Japan is no longer a nation of desperate blubber chewers. Japanese people are becoming far too sophisticated and aware of the serious ecological and conservation issues in the world and the Institute for Cetacean Research simply does not represent modern Japanese views.

Whaling is a dead industry. The problem is that entrenched Japanese bureaucrats and politicians have not accepted the inevitable.

In order to resume commercial whaling the factory ship Nisshin Maru needs to be replaced. This will be an investment of between $100 and $200 million dollars. This will be difficult to justify so that explains the heavy lobbying of the politicians.

Will they get it? I would not be surprised. Politicians everywhere love to waste money in exchange for a kick-back.