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 There is something smelly in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, and it is becoming an international incident. For the last four years, Captain Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have plied these frigid waters near Antarctica, risking their lives to stop the illegal hunting of whales by Japanese ships, which have defied the International Whaling Commission and the government of Australia by continuing to kill whales for ‘research purposes’. (The Sand Paper interviewed Captain Watson last year while he was on board his ship ‘Farley Mowat’, Issue 311, January 26, 2007).
 The Japanese position is that the IWC regulations permit the taking of whales for scientific research. But the Japanese have killed hundreds of whales each year since 1987 for a total of at least 8,137 animals taken under the guise of research. Just this season alone, The Japanese have granted themselves a permit to kill up to 935 Minke whales and up to 50 Fin whales. Estimates of Fin whale numbers are very sketchy, but according to research in 2001 the Southern ocean populations are currently estimated to be no more than 5,000 individuals and probably only 2-3000. A global moratorium on commercial whaling has existed since 1986 under the auspices of the IWC, but Japan’s “scientific whaling program” is conducted within a loophole of the commission’s rules and allows it to slaughter hundreds of whales each year and sell the meat for consumption to pay the costs of the “research”. In 2006 the Japanese Whaling Fleet was restructured to transfer it from private ownership (susceptible to consumer led boycotts) to Government control through the Japanese Government funded Institute for Cetacean Research.

Paul Watson’s ships employ a variety of non-violent methods to interfere with the whaling ships’ operations, including obstruction, harassment and intimidation. It is what the crew of the Sea Shepherd vessel, the Steve Irwin, did this year that is causing the stink.
 The Sea Shepherd crew delivered six liters of rotten butter onto the flensing deck of the Nisshin Maru. This nontoxic obnoxious smelling substance cleared the flensing deck and stopped all work of cutting up whales. This material was both organic and non-toxic. The fact that rancid butter is otherwise known as Butyric acid has the Japanese whalers crying foul, and claiming that three people were injured. But the Sea Shepherd’s founder, Paul Watson, does not believe the claims.
 ”We certainly didn’t injure anybody because we saw where every container hit - it was fully videotaped,” he said, “The Japanese videotaped it and I’m sure that if we had have hit somebody they’d have it on their website, which they do not have. My understanding is that the three injuries were three guys who got sick from the smell and just threw up. So three guys chundering on the deck, really, that’s the extent of it.” He went on to say that the fact that rotten butter turns into Butyric acid does not make it toxic, “just obnoxiously smelly.”
Following the tossing of rancid butter, the Japanese whalers retaliated by shooting flash grenades at the Steve Irwin, resulting in injuries to two crewmembers. During the clash, Captain Paul Watson felt a thud and then found a bullet lodged in his bulletproof vest.
 ”I felt an impact on my chest at one point and didn’t think too much of it at the time and then when I opened up my survival suit - I had a bulletproof vest (on) - and there was a bullet lodged in it,” he told ABC Radio. Mr Watson said that the bullet hit him on the upper left side of his chest and bent a badge he was wearing underneath.
 ”If I wasn’t wearing the vest it would have been pretty serious,” he said.
 Captain Watson said he did not know who had shot him. “I didn’t see anybody shoot at me and it was pretty hard for any of the crew to see anything because everybody was ducking from these flash grenades.” The ship’s doctor, David Page, confirmed that Captain Watson had been shot. He was filmed prying the bullet from Mr Watsons’s Kevlar vest and saying “You have been hit by a bullet”. The Kevlar vest and anti-poaching badge effectively saved Captain Watson’s life.
 Mr Inwood, the New Zealand-based spokesman for the ICR, denied that Captain Watson had been shot and said there had been some “retaliation” when the coast guards fired “seven warning balls” at the Sea Shepherd vessel.
“Any claim from Paul Watson that he was fired at with a gun and has a bullet lodged in his bulletproof vest is absolutely false,” he told ABC Radio.
 Watson accused Japan of overacting to Sea Shepherd’s protests, which pose no threat to members of the whaling crew. “We go out of our way to make sure we don’t throw them near anybody, but they were throwing the flash grenades directly at us,” he said.
 ”Why are there armed coast guard people attacking Australian citizens and other citizens in the Australian Antarctic territory?”
I asked Captain Watson - who is currently headed to Canada to captain the Farley Mowat against seal hunting - about the incident and whether or not the Australian government did anything about the shooting.
 ”No there was no investigation and although the Australian Federal police did board the ship when it arrived in Australia they did not request any information or evidence,” he told us. “The problem for them is political. They cannot admit to having jurisdiction in the Australian Antarctic Economic Exclusion Zone without explaining why they don’t exercise authority over illegal Japanese whaling activities. I did show them the Kevlar vest and the bullet but they only commented that the integrity of the vest was compromised now that it was struck by a bullet and cannot be used again. The vest was taken by Australian Customs and placed in bond because bullet -proof vests are illegal in Australia. It will be given back to me when the ship departs. There really is no way of proving where the shot originated. The Japanese say that I shot myself or carried the vest down to the Antarctic with the bullet in it. However the vest was in the hands of Customs prior to departure, there is no rifle or pistol on the Sea Shepherd ship and the vest and the anti-poaching badge that was mangled by the shot were clearly intact in an Animal Planet interview earlier. Also Dr. David Page, the ship’s doctor, removed the bullet from the vest and examined my bruising beneath the vest.”
 The Australian foreign minister, Stephen Smith, called for calm on both sides. “The Australian government once again calls on all parties in the southern ocean, including all protest and whaling vessels, and their respective crews, to exercise restraint,” he said.
 The Japanese whalers say that Australian authorities should take action against Sea Shepherd activists when they return to Melbourne from the Southern Ocean. Japan’s ICR said Australia agreed at a recent meeting in London to take action under international laws to stop offenders who risked life and property at sea.
 Japan and Australia, long close allies, have had increasing friction over whaling.
 According to Australian news sources, the Australian Federal Police will investigate the incident, although police investigations are likely to be inconclusive.
 Former Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell, said the Sea Shepherd actions were “childish pranks” that did no harm to the whalers but greatly aided the conservation cause.
 ”I think they (the Japanese) always overreact and they help the media make a bigger story out of it,” Mr Campbell told ABC Radio on Sunday.”Firing back at the Sea Shepherd - as Arnie Schwarzenegger used to say, ‘Make my day’, I think it was.Throwing rancid butter … what happens in school yards around Australia in school yards each week”.
 Mr Campbell is now a member of the international advisory board of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
ICR Director General Minoru Morimoto urged the Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace “not to interfere further in Japan’s research program, which is working to improve knowledge of Antarctic whale species and improve development of a commercial whaling regime.”
Some hope for a solution came out of a recent IWC meeting in London. In exchange for the Japanese abandoning their “research” in the Southern Ocean, the IWC would give them permission to have a legal commercial hunt, resulting in a legal kill of 150 Minke whales, in the North Pacific near Japan. This would effectively end the hostilities for now because, according to Captain Watson, “Although the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is opposed to all whaling in principle, their activities are directed at illegal operations. This means that the Sea Shepherd would not send ships to oppose an IWC legally sanctioned whale hunt off of Japan.”
 Captain Watson told us that he believes Japan will take the deal. “I believe the Japanese are looking for a face saving way to leave the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. I think they may stop whaling this year but we are preparing to return nonetheless. If they do agree to the compromise, it will mean that the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary would in fact be a Sanctuary and not just a sanctuary in name only.”
 The Sea Shepherd dropped anchor off the coast of Melbourne at noon on Saturday, March 15th. According to seashepherd.org, the 2007-2008 season was a success. In three and a half months and covering 20,000 miles, over 500 whales were saved. This was supported by Japanese press releases, which said that their catch was less than half of what they had expected, blaming the low numbers on the Sea Shepherd.
Captain Watson said that while he doesn’t enjoy conflict with the Japanese, “We do this to defend whales, not to offend Japan. If Japan refuses to accept the compromise that the IWC is talking about, we will return, hopefully with a third ship so they don’t get any of their quota next year. We must abolish whaling in the Southern Ocean. We cannot retreat from this position.” Captain Watson elaborated on his strong position.
 ”I have been fighting whalers since 1974 which is all of my adult life. I would dearly love to see whaling abolished before I die and if that means spending the remainder of my days fighting whalers on the high seas than that is what it will be.”
 So what’s next for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Captain Watson? During our interview he told me that he was on his way to Canada.
 ”Our ship the Farley Mowat is on it’s way to the Gulf of St. Lawrence to protect harp seals,” Captain Watson said. “Canada intends to slaughter 325,000 seal pups within the next few weeks. Our ship Steve Irwin is being prepared in Australia to return to the Whale Sanctuary in December. Our ship Yoshka remains on daily patrols for poachers in the Galapagos National Park Marine Reserve.”
 
   Keri Hendry

 
 As the world’s population burgeons, clashes between governments and groups dedicated to preserving our oceans and wildlife are likely to intensify. Not only limited to the drama in the Southern Ocean with Australia and Japan, another situation is unfolding in Canada where the Sea Shepherd’s boat the Farley Mowat is headed in an attempt to interfere with the country’s annual seal hunt, on the basis that it is inhumane and that the Canadian government is not taking into account diminishing ice coverage - due to global warming - when it sets its quotas.
 In a variety of vessels, Captain Paul Watson has demonstrated against the Canadian seal hunt since the mid-1970s and has taken Sea Shepherd vessels to the hunt since 1979. He has been attacked and arrested for these demonstrations, but has not been deterred.
 On March 10, Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Loyola Hearn announced that this season’s total allowable catch would be 275,000 harp seal pups, out of a seal herd of more than 5.5 million animals. The 2008 hooded seal total allowable catch has been set at 8,200 animals out of a herd of 600,000.
 Canada’s commercial seal hunt is the world’s largest hunt for marine mammals. Last year over 224,000 seals were killed, 98 percent of them pups less than three months of age.
 ”The seal hunt is an economic mainstay for numerous rural communities in Atlantic Canada, Quebec and the North,” said Minister Hearn, who represents the people of Newfoundland and Labrador in the Canadian Parliament.
 But the European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, found that there is strong evidence that, in practice, effective killing does not always occur and that the animals suffer a great deal of pain. They also concluded that seals should be recognized as sentient marine mammals that can experience pain, distress, fear, and other forms of suffering - not fish, as they are classified in Canada. It also recommends that seals should be protected from killing and skinning practices that cause them pain, distress, and avoidable suffering.
 In the last year, an international groundswell of public opposition to this hunt has brought about national bans on seal products in Belgium and The Netherlands. Similar bans designed to close down markets for seal pelts are currently under consideration in Germany, Italy and Austria.
 ”The seal hunt is a perverse abomination that has no place in the civilized world and certainly no place in Canada in the 21st century,” said Captain Watson.

   Keri Hendry