End Whaling Forever

Hello Friends,

They want to kill more whales - a lot more - but we're not going to let them. Japanese whalers have already killed 680 whales in the last few months, all under the ridiculous sham of conducting "research." In less than a month, Japan will come face to face with Greenpeace at the 2009 International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Portugal. This is the real battleground to save the whales - where their future ultimately hangs in the balance. But we cannot win a future for the whales without YOU!



Greenpeace urgently need $50,000 to send our top activists and campaigners to Portugal next month to demand an end to Japan's lethal whaling program. With just a $5 or $10 donation YOU can join Greenpeace in ending whaling forever.

TAKE ACTION: Please donate today!

Greenpeace launched the world's first anti-whaling campaign in 1975 and, after over a decade of campaigning, Greenpeace convinced the IWC to effectively ban commercial whaling in 1986. But Japan has been abusing a loophole in the ban that allows its whalers to kill hundreds of these amazing defenseless creatures every year for so-called "scientific research." Greenpeace has exposed this as a fraud and we must not allow the slaughter to continue.



This past year, in one of the most significant developments since we won the ban on commercial whaling, Greenpeace disclosed evidence that reveals Japan's research program for what it really is: a large-scale whale meat scam. Even the IWC's Scientific Committee found that Japan has failed to reach a single one of its scientific objectives and has repeatedly asked Japan to end its hunt.

We need your support to save the whales, end the slaughter and defend our oceans - please click now and make as generous a gift as you can.

For the whales,



John Hocevar
Oceans Campaign Director


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The Seal Hunt is Dead! Long Live the Seals

From: Captain Paul Watson
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The Seal Hunt is Dead! Long Live the Seals!

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has lost a ship but we are winning the war to save the seals.

On Friday the European ambassadors approved a European Union proposal to ban imports of furs and all seal products. This moves the 27 nation bloc much closer to the final decision to impose the ban and final approval now is really only a formality.

Canada and Norway are threatening a trade war with Europe but Canada needs trade with Europe far more than Europe needs seal products. Canadians in the non-barbaric industries will not have much patience in losing profits in defence of the slaughter of seals.

Canada and Norway are threatening to take Europe before the World Trade Organization.

However, "Nothing should now stand in the way of this ban being adopted," said an official from the EU's Czech presidency, which brokered a deal this week that will exclude hunts by Inuits. "It needs to go before the European Parliament in May, but that should be a formality because parliament negotiators have already agreed to it informally," the official added.

Canada, Greenland and Namibia account for around 60 percent of the 900,000 seals hunted each year.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere wrote to EU trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton this month arguing that the ban broke the principle of free trade and set a dangerous precedent on the harvesting of renewable resources.

A European official said the Commission believed the plan was "legally sound".

The 15 seal species now hunted are not endangered but European politicians demanded action after finding what they said was evidence that many are skinned while still conscious. The animals are usually first shot or bludgeoned over the head with a spiked club known as a hakapik.

Russia banned the hunting of baby harp seals last month, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called it a "bloody industry".

The Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat was seized by the Canadian government in an act of piracy in April 2008 and was auctioned off with secret bids this month without the ship ever having been arrested, charged with any offence, without a court hearing, without a summons and without due process of law.

Apparently the ship was auctioned off on April 21st but the government has not released any information on who the ship will be given to. Sea Shepherd intends to take legal action against the buyer on the grounds that the Farley Mowat is the property of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and was never legally forfeited.

Sea Shepherd officers Captain Alex Cornelissen and 1st Officer Peter Hammarstedt were charged with the “crime” of breaking the Seal Protection Regulations by documenting and witnessing the killing of seal pups.

They are scheduled to appear in court on April 27th but Canadian Immigration officials ordered them deported last April and informed them they are inadmissible to re-enter Canada.

“This is very convenient,” said Captain Paul Watson. “Canada will be able to seize $10,000 in bail money and will avoid the embarrassment of the trial and they will accuse our crew of refusing to appear. But they can’t appear in court in Canada if they are not allowed to enter Canada. ”

However despite the hassles and the loss of a ship that the Society was going to retire anyway, the publicity generated by last year’s campaign to oppose the sealers helped in convincing the European Parliament to ban seal products and thus the trade-off was well worth the expense and the inconvenience.

“Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war,” Said Captain Watson

Meanwhile Canadian politicians are spouting threats and whining like cowardly Nazi’s in a bunker as the waves of civilized reform crashes down on the barbaric mindset that has for so long endorsed and applauded the grossly inhumane and savage slaughter of one of the most innocent creatures on the planet – the baby seals.

“These cruel and sadistic baby killers have had their day,” Said Captain Watson. “The price of seal pelts has fallen to their lowest levels and soon this obscene industry will go the way of the slave trade, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and child labour – in short it will go extinct and all of us who have fought our entire lives for this great victory will be grateful for the European nations for realizing this wonderful dream. The seal hunt is dead – long live the seals”

Criminals Plan to Slaughter 60 whales off the Coast of Japan

From: Captain Paul Watson


Criminals Plan to Slaughter 60 whales off the Coast of Japan

The Yakusa controlled Japanese whaling industry have unleashed their mad dog killers into the waters off their own Northeastern coast to viciously slaughter 60 Piked whales.


The proposed slaughter will be illegal and the killing is not endorsed or sanctioned by the International Whaling Commission.


Once again Japan is justifying the slaughter under the absurd excuse of “research.
”

The whalers are trying to compensate for losses caused by Sea Shepherd interventions in the Southern Ocean in December 2008 and January and February 2009.


The Japanese Fisheries Agency reported to the media that the environmentalist group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society made it impossible for the whaling vessels to operate on 16 days of the 100-day whale hunt.


The six ships caught 679 minke and one fin whale on the mission, the agency said. That was well below its planned haul of between 765 and 935 of the giant mammals.


The whalers need to kill at least 765 whales to break even. As a result they suffered losses of tens of millions of dollars.



The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin and her crew chased and shut down the whaling operations for more than five weeks Japan claims 16 days but that would mean that they would have fallen only 128 whales short of their set quota based on an average kill of 8 whales per day. The whalers failed to reach their set quota by 305 which means that Sea Shepherd prevented whaling activities for 38 days which validates the Sea Shepherd claim that whaling was shut down for five and a half weeks – not 16 days as Japan claims.


Four whaling ships and one designated “research”vessel will set sail soon from Ayukawa port in northern Miyagi prefecture and hunt whales within 80 kilometres (50 miles) off the coast until late May, the official said.


Japan wants to launch the new whaling mission ahead of the International Whaling Commission's annual general meeting in June in Madeira, Portugal. The IWC will not have an opportunity to censure these illegal whaling activities until after the whales are killed Japan is gamboling that the member nations will do little more than make a noisy fuss about the violations of IWC regulations. The Japanese have learned that the IWC is just a paper shark, all talk and no action.

S.Korea wants whale quota if Japan gets deal

Anti-whaling groups fear South Korea and other countries will try to resume whaling if Japan gets permission for limited catches on its coasts in return for stopping so-called "scientific" whaling in Antarctica.


Lobby groups following an International Whaling Commission (IWC) panel meeting in Rome ending on Wednesday said diplomatic efforts for a compromise with Japan could, by creating a new "coastal" catch category, open up a new loophole for whaling.


IWC Chairman Bill Hogarth said in a statement after the Rome talks that "opinions differ among the members" but that he hoped for agreement by the IWC's annual meeting in Madeira in June.


Japan officially observes the 1986 global moratorium on whaling -- unlike Iceland and Norway, which ignore it and carry out commercial whaling. But Japan still catches about 900 whales a year in Antarctic waters for what it calls research purposes.


Japan, which defends its right to scientific catches and says killing whales is no different from slaughtering any other animal, has also long sought a quota of 150 minke whales for coastal areas it says have been impoverished by the moratorium.


Most of the meat from scientific catches still ends up on dinner tables, angering animal welfare groups around the world who argue that many species face extinction and that explosive harpoons used by whalers can cause horrific suffering.


"DANGEROUS PRECEDENT"

A panel of the IWC -- set up in 1946 to conserve stocks -- is seeking a compromise deal for its annual meeting in Madeira in June to let Japan hunt minkes off its coast in return for ending Antarctic whaling or limiting it to sustainable levels.


"This sets a really dangerous precedent which South Korea underlined by saying that 'if Japan has impoverished coastal communities and wants a quota, then so have we'," said Claire Bass of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).


"This would open the floodgates for commercial whaling," the WSPA marine mammal programme manager told Reuters in Rome.


Nicolas Entrup, spokesman for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), said minke whales in Korean waters already faced extinction because of "by-catching" -- when whales are accidentally caught in fishing nets, then sold for eating -- and would face an accelerated threat if Korea resumes whaling.


"We should be closing the loopholes that permit whaling rather than creating new loopholes," Entrup told Reuters.


Korean whaling helped supply the Japanese market for much of the 20th century, especially during Japanese occupation. It had a "scientific" catch of about 69 whales in 1986 but has since mostly abided by the global moratorium declared that year.