Posts tagged with WHALING

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Obama Presses Iceland Over Fin Whale Hunt

By Andrew C. Revkin

On Thursday, President Obama ordered government agencies to ramp up pressure on Iceland to end its slaughter of endangered fin whales, the second largest whale species. But the president stopped short of imposing trade sanctions. He issued a Message to Congress with the details, including this passage:

Of particular concern to the United States, Iceland harvested 125 endangered fin whales in 2009 and 148 in 2010, a significant increase from the total of 7 fin whales it commercially harvested between 1987 and 2007.

This is what that harvest looks like (video from Greenpeace):

There are thought to be around 30,000 of these giants, the second largest whale species, in the North Atlantic.

I was lucky enough to see a few in 2004, while writing about humanity’s evolving relationship with whales from the vantage point of Tadoussac, Quebec. — a spot where whales centuries ago were slaughtered on the beach but where crowds now gather on the rocks to watch spouting blue, sperm, minke and other whale species feeding. Here’s one photo from that visit: Read more…

Paul Watson Recalls Civil War’s Whale Wars

By Andrew C. Revkin


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Here’s a short second segment of the interview I conducted last week with Paul Watson, the leader of the Sea Shepherd campaign that cut short Japan’s Southern Ocean whale hunt this year. ( Part one is here.) He describes a book he is writing about the first real whale war, one that long predated his effort and the “Whale Wars” television series.

The book centers on the exploits of the Confederate steamer Shenandoah, which preyed on whaling vessels supplying oil for the Union. The ship was skippered by Lieutenant James Iredell Wadell, who, along with capturing or sinking 38 ships (without a single casualty on either side), famously is said to have fired the last shot of the Civil War, two months after the war had ended. (Watson explains that seeming conundrum in the video.) The ship is pictured in action in Arctic waters in the lithograph below, from the collection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Shenandoah attacking whaling vessels in the Arctic OceanU.S. Naval Historical Center The Shenandoah attacking whaling vessels in the Bering Sea in June 1865.

If this tale intrigues you, while you’re waiting for Watson’s book you can start in with “The Last Shot: The Incredible Story of the C.S.S. Shenandoah and the True Conclusion of the American Civil War,” by Lynn Schooler of Juneau, Alaska.

Here’s what a modern whale war looks like:

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‘Whale Wars’ Leader: ‘Arrest Me or Shut Up’

By Andrew C. Revkin

Amid scrambling to presentations at the World Science Festival and a United Nations screening of a remarkable new film, the “ Journey of the Universe,” I slipped in 45 minutes to interview Paul Watson. He’s the founder of the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and central character in the popular “ Whale Wars” show on Animal Planet, which began its fourth season on Friday night and may have a new focus next year. Here’s part one of the interview:


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The producers had to draw on a smaller lode of content this year, given that Watson’s aggressive harassment of Japan’s whaling fleet, along with economic and diplomatic pressures, cut short the killing season in February. As reported at the time by Martin Fackler, this greatly reduced the harvest:

The Agriculture Ministry, which runs Japan’s widely criticized research whaling program, said harassment by the group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, had kept its catch far below its annual target of whales. A spokesman for the ministry said on Friday that 170 minke whales and two fin whales had been caught this season, far below the annual targets of 850 minke and 50 fin.

Watson, as ever, is unrelentingly blunt, rejecting Japanese claims that he is an ecoterrorist and criminal. If that’s the case, he told me, “Shut up and arrest me.” His only goal, he said, is to prevent the killing of whales, and he was thrilled to see Japan’s retreat this year.

For its part, the Institute of Cetacean Research, the mouthpiece of Japan’s whaling operation, has posted video from the whalers’ vantage point showing some activities that seem to me to cross the line from harassment to assault. Firing flares onto the deck of a ship (video) cannot be seen as anything else, to my mind. Aiming to entangle a ship’s propellers is perhaps a bit more nuanced, but not much:
Read more…

U.S. Presses Iceland Over Whale Meat Trade

By Andrew C. Revkin
watching a fin whaleAndrew C. Revkin Tourists watch a fin whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. The species is being heavily hunted in waters off Iceland.

The Obama administration has strongly criticized Iceland for resuming international trade in the meat from its expanding hunt for fin whales, the second largest whale species and one still listed as endangered under the United States Endangered Species Act. Here’s a summary and statement issued this week by the Department of Commerce:

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke issued the following statement on Iceland’s decision to resume international trade in fin whale meat, and its escalation of commercial whaling outside of the control of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Iceland killed 273 endangered fin whales in the last two years. IWC scientists fear removing more than 46 fin whales per year from the population is unsustainable. There is currently a global moratorium on commercial whaling, and a ban on international trade in fin whale meat.

“The United States strongly opposes Iceland’s defiance of the commercial whaling ban. We urge Iceland to cease international trade of whale meat and work with the international community to safeguard whale species,” said Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. “It is troubling that Iceland continues to pursue commercial whaling outside the boundaries of the IWC, without member oversight or analysis by the Commission’s scientific committee.”

This video, shot by Greenpeace last year, shows the fin whale harvest:

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There’s more on Iceland’s expanded commercial whaling efforts in earlier Dot Earth posts.

‘Whale Wars’ Leader Responds on Boat Sinking

By Andrew C. Revkin

[June 2, 11:52 p.m. | Updated I interviewed Paul Watson on the eve of the opening segment in the new season of “Whale Wars.” The video below is part one.]

Paul Watson, the charismatic and controversial leader of the Sea Shepherd campaign against Japanese whale hunts, has offered a potent rebuttal tonight to allegations that he ordered the scuttling of the Ady Gil, a million-dollar anti-whaling patrol boat damaged after a collision with a Japanese ship in the southern ocean early this year. Here’s one video view of the collision:

Watson defended himself in a long statement submitted as a comment on an earlier post rounding up coverage of accusations made by Pete Bethune, the skipper of the wrecked vessel: Read more…

Did ‘Whale Wars’ Leader Sink Boat for Publicity?

By Andrew C. Revkin

News reports are probing whether Paul Watson, who has turned a longstanding anti-whaling campaign into popular television entertainment with “Whale Wars,” ordered the intentional sinking of a million-dollar protest boat after it was damaged in a collision with a Japanese vessel early this year. 2:49 p.m. | Update Watson posted a comment on Dot Earth Friday night offering a detailed defense.]

Here’s one video view of the collision:

There are two other vantage points that you can review in my earlier post on the incident.

The news doesn’t relate to the collision, but the aftermath. Pete Bethune, who was the skipper of the destroyed speedboat, the Ady Gil, resigned this week from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, claiming that the boat, donated by Ady Gil, the millionaire it was named for, was unnecessarily scuttled to generate better publicity. There’s quite a bit of coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In the New Zealand Herald, Gil is quoted as saying that he believes Bethune. Watson denies the allegations. (Shortly after the first boat was damaged, Gil started raising money for a replacement.)

Over and over, the dubious merits of using theatrics to focus attention on environmental or animal welfare issues have been on display.

It’s one thing for anti-whaling campaigners, at great risk and cost, to dog Japanese vessels to chronicle the slaughter of whales on the shared global ocean — far beyond the ability of governments or media to track.

It has always been another thing, entirely, to choose to clash with such vessels.

And it’s another thing, yet again, to gin up sympathetic publicity (and ratings) by sinking a salvageable boat.

If Bethune’s allegations hold up, whatever remains of Watson’s credibility should fast fade.

Varied Views of Bloody Coves

By Andrew C. Revkin

The periodic roundup and slaughter of dolphins in coves near a Japanese town has become a prime focal point of animal welfare campaigners, particularly after the practice was vividly documented in the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove.” But another such roundup, of pilot whales, takes place more quietly in the Faroe Islands, an autonomous province of Denmark.

A fresh batch of video and photos of this year’s Faroese whale killings has been posted on the Web, mainly by animal welfare campaigners. Here’s one example:

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The Faroese ministry of fisheries defends the hunts as a centuries-old tradition and stresses that recent changes in killing techniques have greatly reduced the “time to death” for the marine mammals. Here’s how ministry describes the operations: Read more…

Notes From the Whaling and Warming Wars

By Andrew C. Revkin

I was out on the Hudson River most of Wednesday, watching New York State biologists net, study and release a 120-pound, 80-inch male Atlantic sturgeon (a small one by historic standards) as part of a project tracking what appears to be a slow recovery after a terrible population crash from overfishing. I’ll be filing a post and video report soon, but wanted to note several recent developments around the world related to the focus of this blog (busy times):

Whaling
-The latest meeting of the International Whaling Commission saw the collapse of efforts to craft a deal on limited whaling that would be acceptable to the handful of nations hunting whales and many others seeking to protect the giants of the sea.

Warming
– The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the full slate of 831 authors for its fifth assessment of the causes and consequences of climate change, due in 2014. There are many names familiar to Dot Earth readers. The panel made a point of noting its effort to include a wide range of views. Have a look around the working groups (links to lists) and discuss notable participants.

– A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences attempted to sort hundreds of publishing climate scientists into two categories — those convinced and unconvinced of the basics on human-driven global warming — and found nearly all of those with long, heavily cited publishing records were convinced.

Not surprisingly, the study has been embraced by proponents of swift action to curb greenhouse gases and attacked by skeptics. More surprisingly, at least a few seasoned climate researchers who are eager for action on emissions also found the work wanting. Read more…

Japan’s Hard Right Keeps Dolphin Film from Theaters

By Andrew C. Revkin

An article in The Times today shows how a small, but potent ultra-conservative faction in Japan has intimidated theater owners pondering showing “The Cove,” the Oscar-winning documentary that revealed in bloody detail the annual roundup of dolphins by a Japanese town and the slaughter of the animals that don’t get auctioned to dolphin shows and aquariums.

Here’s the nut:

In a country that shudders at disharmony and remains wary of the far right’s violent history, the activists’ noisy rallies, online slanders, intimidating phone calls and veiled threats of violence are frightening theaters into canceling showings of “The Cove,” which not only depicts dolphin hunting in an unflattering light but also warns of high levels of mercury in fish, a disturbing disclosure in this seafood-loving nation.

It is a stark example as well of how public debate on topics deemed delicate here can be easily muffled by a small minority, the most vocal of whom are the country’s estimated 10,000 rightists who espouse hard-line stances in disputes against Tokyo’s neighbors. Read on…

Japan Resists Dolphin Documentary

By Andrew C. Revkin

Not surprisingly, a fight is under way in Japan over efforts to screen “The Cove,” the Oscar-winning documentary chronicling the annual slaughter of hundreds of dolphins in a town there.

Below you can watch an interview I did with Louie Psihoyos, the film’s director, onstage at the Asia Society in March (in front of an audience that asked very tough questions). Whatever you think about the dolphin killing, or the tactics of the filmmakers, the documentary deserves to be seen and discussed in Japan.
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