Sea Shepherd members, supporters protest Japan's renewed whale hunt
On the 30th of December, protesters showed up at the Japanese Embassy to call out Japan's return to illegal commerical whaling in the Southern Ocean. Many of them were from Sea Shepherd, the world's foremost counter-poaching navy. In defiance of rulings from the International Court of Justice, Japan's "Institute for Cetacean Research" (ICR) has once again sent their ships to the Southern Ocean to kill whales.Activists say the only "research" being done is into the taste of whale meat, and the International Court of Justice agree. The ICR is killing whales anyway, and in turn theiur poaching ships are being hunted by Sea Shepherd.
Sea Shepherd ships are already in the Southern Ocean hunting the two Pategonian Toothfish poaching vessels that escaped impoundment or scuttling after last year's Operation Icefish. Operation Icefish II has been expanded to include finding and stopping both the toothfish poachers and the whaling fleet. There is no chance in the world of both of these escaping Sea Shepherd's patrols, and a near certainty that all of them will be caught. In fact, the combined number of toothfish and whale poaching ships is little more than last year's crop of toothfish poachers alone. Sea Shepherd will do whatever it takes to stop all of them from poaching anything that swims in the Southern Ocean, a place none of them are licensed to catch fish, whales, or anything else except a huge heap of trouble.
