Sea Shepherd hunts down the Japanese whalers before a single whale is killed

Sea Shepherd News - 

The Southern Ocean - 148 degrees west 63 degrees south.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s fleet has found the illegal Japanese whaling vessels on the last day of the calendar year. In the vastness of the Southern Ocean, Sea Shepherd’s ships have now found the Japanese fleet before they even began killing whales.  This is a momentous victory for the whales and precisely how Sea Shepherd’s President and Founder Captain Paul Watson had hoped to ring in the New Year.

At around 0900 hours (Australian Eastern Standard Time), Sea Shepherd’s ship the Bob Barker found a harpoon vessel on the edge of the ice at 148 degrees west. The unidentified Japanese vessel attempted to move south to draw the Bob Barker away from the Nisshin Maru.

At 1500 Hours AEST, some 60 miles to the North, Sea Shepherd’s flagship vessel the Steve Irwin found the Japanese harpoon vessel Yushin Maru #2 sitting in the ice.

The Gojira and Sea Shepherd’s helicopter the Nancy Burnet, continue to search for the Nisshin Maru, Japan’s floating abattoir.

By knowing when the Nisshin Maru left Japan and estimating the speed of the ship as it headed south, Captain Watson was able to get a rough idea of the whaling fleet’s daily progress.

He decided to take the Steve Irwin to Wellington, New Zealand and then down to Bluff on the southern end of the South Island. The Gojira stayed in Hobart and the Bob Barker moved to the middle and to the south of the Tasman Sea to show the Japanese that we were covering their path should they choose to go through it.

Captain Watson figured this would force the whaling fleet to the east to avoid being caught in the middle of the Sea Shepherd fleet in the Tasman Sea.

The whalers made an announcement that they would expand their hunting area to make it more difficult for Sea Shepherd to find them but over the last seven campaigns that Sea Shepherd has been harassing them, the illegal Japanese whalers have proven themselves to be nothing short of predictable and Captain Watson decided they were bluffing.

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