Esperanza arrives at the crippled Nisshin Maru | Home | Arriving on scene with the whaling fleet

sorry to hear that

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Dave on the Esperanza: That seems very uncharitable and nasty , Henry. We don't wish harm to the whalers - we just want them to stop whaling.

that's so upsetting how awful. i'm so sorry i can't imagine the grief that his family and friends must feel. i wish them whatever peace they can possibly find.

Hello. I am so sorry to hear about the loss of a crewmember and my thoughts go out to his family and friends. Please be safe and my hopes are that no more violence or tragedies occur.

Sincerely,

Aaliyah

...thanks again to you the crew of the Esperanza. You can add my heart to those who feel the loss of this man, and those that choose to feel the agony and sorrow of his dear wife and children. I feel things might have been different, if he could only have had his moment in the sun, ...a chance of a lifetime, to feel what you all do inside. We're all just children, ...trying to learn, ...none of us perfect. Your continued Love and commitment are the only chance this planet and human race has. Hold the Light forever, you feel so precious inside you now. "Speak straight, so that your words may go as shafts of sunlight into their hearts" ___Cochise, Apache Indian Chief

I am very sorry for the loss of this young man, for the tragedy imposed on his wife and children.

Let's hope that many positive lessons are learned - is whaling really worth the loss of lives? May wiser heads prevail at ICR.

With the Nisshin Maru disabled, and unlikely to return to the whaling grounds this year, I am also very relieved.
This means Greenpeace activists won't be putting their lives in jeopardy placing themselves between whales and lethal harpoons.

Maybe this is the year for changes in attitude, a re-thinking of priorities for Japan, given that their whaling season has ended in disaster, and the normalization meeting plagued with scandal.

Throughout this, Greenpeace crew and staff - you have conducted yourselves compassionately and as true champions of the environment. Many thanks.

Oh yes, it is really really really heartbreaking sad that an illegal whaler has been killed in action. I am so thankful for Greenpeace who is investing money and resources to help the whalers and show them understanding. Peace and love for illegal whale killers!

Dave on the Esperanza: Matti - have you no compassion in your heart? Or are you operating on an "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" basis?

Are still in the vicinity of the Japanese trawler, Yushin Maru?

What are YOUR plans now?

Dave on the Esperanza: Kitt, the Yushin Maru is not a trawler, it's a harpoon vessel (aka "catcher boat") for the Japanese whaling fleet. We're now with it, and the rest of the whaling fleet, including the crippled Nisshin Maru factory ship, in the Ross Sea.

We're currently monitoring the situation - see earlier blog posts for details.

Thanks Dave for keeping us updated on this situation. It's very sad that this man has been killed but I'm happy that they found his body. Thankfully more of the crew wasn't killed. I echo everyone's hopes that this will shut down japaese whaling for at least this season.

Well done!!! to the crew of the Esperanza. Special thanks to the camramen for showing us what's going on....the pics of the Japanese vessels on a previous thread were great!!! Looks like weather conditions are pretty dramatic...stay safe and warm you guys.

Hi ! Im Dave from the Philippines,I wish to praise all the memebrs and crews of the Greenpeace ship;MY Esperanza.For their noble christian virtues in helping their adversaries in times of Humanitarian situation.In these testing times where the sincerety of Greenpeace goals are put to the challenge.I definitely support their action towards helping the disabled Japanese ship and giving their condolences to the wife of the dead crewmen.Thus proving themselves to be truly symphatetic.All for the best interest of both human and other living creatures.

Yours Truly,
Dave Pagtakhan
Bacoor,Cavite,Philippines

How do you defend a Greenpeacer EATING WHALE in Japan, Dave? You have an answer for everything so defend that one. You have lost thousands of supporters. Activists around the world are calling for a boycott of Greenpeace. You have done NOTHING on this antarctic campaign. NOTHING. You all floated around on a ship funded by donations for a few weeks. Way to go. Greenpeace has become a joke. Robert Hunter would be real proud (ROLLING EYES) of you, I'm sure. And any self-respecting environmentalist would be vegan or at least vegetarian. If you eat meat, you're NO ENVIRONMENTALIST OR ACTIVIST. You're never getting my support again.

Hello to all on the Esperanza. I just want to commend you guys for your compassion and positive attitudes in all situations set before you. That is the true spirit that keeps the peace in GreenPeace, which I think a lot of people overlook sometimes, whether or not in intentional opposition. I have become quite addicted to your blog, and thanks to your Flickr account, am thrilled to have found this outlet to keep me in the loop with one of my greatest passions. Thanks for everything - you guys rock! :-)

I know you mentioned that the Japanese fisheries agency doesn't want you to tow the nisshin maru and called you all terrorist, but what does the nisshin maru want?

Hi Anon (why so shy?) The whaling fleet have asked us to stand by while they assess the state of the Nisshin Maru. Stand by!

HmmHm - Thanks for the clarification, Dave. You're talking to someone whose boat identification skills are sorely limited. I did check out everything on site. Very informative and put together very, very well. It's bookmarked.

I would think this is a difficult for the Nisshin Maru crew, and most certainly for the family of the crew member killed.....especially the waiting.

Take good care.

Regarding the description of the Yushin Maru, I would like to point out that the Institute for Cetacean Research, Japan's pro-whaling govt organization that is behind their push to expand whaling, has a web page that lists the killer fleet's ships, and the harpoon boats are described as 'Sighting/Sampling' vessels. Now how about that? Sampler vessel! Nooo, don't call it a hunger-killer ship, or a harpoon ship. This is classic propaganda, devious, all in keeping with their subterfuge of killing whales in the guise of 'research.' (But even the western name sometimes ascribed is too innocuous - catcher ship - though not 1/100 as bad as the ICR's.) They constantly tell little white lies, and big ones, to lend credence to their stand that whaling is for science. (The rubbish that comes out of ICR's spokesman Glenn Inwood and David-Tokyo staggers the mind.) But no one believes the research stance anymore anyway, and Japanese officals admit it as much as they push for the lifting of the moratorium on commercial whaling, and pay out millions of $$$ for vote support on the IWC (which they also deny).

My heart goes out to Kazutaka Makita's family and friends. Hard to loose someone, harder to loose someone who is so far away.

Perhaps this will cause Japan to rethink their whaling position, maybe even decide not to continue. Kazutaka Makita's life will have then saved many many whales and some good will have come of all this. Ironic, that would be, and sad that it took a human life to make a change where rational thought should have.

My sincere condolences to his family, friends and fellow crew members, and to the crew of Esperanza, good work, keep it up, and above all else, stay safe. Much Love.

You mentioned a radio call from the Yushin Maru. Do whaling ships often communicate directly with you, or is this an exception? Appreciate your work out there. Stay safe.

Do you mean during this incident, or generally? In this case they do. Not always though.

Thanks for the reply. I meant in general, before this incident. Were communications only of the hostile type, if they occured at all?

Sending my prayers & condolences to the family of Kazutaka Makita. This is very upsetting...out of respect for the recently deceased, stop the slamming!

Well, we always attempt to communicate with the whaling vessels via VHF - they don't always respond, however.

It´s terrible to hear that, his family must be really sad. This is one of the things that happen because of whaling, whales and people killed by greed.

Up the Sea Shepherds!

Dave on the Esperanza: Howsabout up the whales? Or up Greenpeace even? Constantly amazed by the amount of Sea Shepherd supporters that feel the need to hijack even something like the announcement of someone's death. Sheesh.

I agree Dave, ...what is all this stuff from the SS supporters all the time. What is their point, ...and why are they so desperate? They can't tell me this isn't orchestrated and without design. Revenge? I just hope who's ever got this in their hearts, gets rid of it soon before it eats them up. ...and really, what do you think you're accomplishing? All these posts just make you look heartless, and selfishly ambitious to everyone. Remember what 'Thumper' told Bambi? "If you don't have somethin' nice to say, ...don't say nothin' at all."

Veronica, before bashing Greenpeace, try to get your facts straight: http://forum.greenpeace.org/int/showpost.php?p=15271&postcount=29
I don't know who gave you the right to decide who was a self-respecting environmentalist, but you should at least consider that there can be other points of view.
Also, I don't know how you expect Greenpeace to stop whaling right now, seeing as no whaling is going on...

I have to admit I was left a little perplexed by the GP activist sampling the whale meat on the whale love website.

As I understand it the aim was to demonstrate that eating whale is a thing of the past for most Japanese. Is that correct?.. And is there a version where it is translated into English?

Also, Veronica, why is it that "any self respecting activist or environmentalist must be a vegetarian" or worse still "vegan"? Thats a bit alienating don't you think?

GP are in fact activists and environmentalists and have self-respect and yet are not all vegans and vegetarians. Thus your claim is disproved.

The mainstream meat industry is responsible for a lot of environmental destruction, not to mention cruelty, and large-scale beef farming in Brazil and Australia etc should be condemned (I believe GP has said as much in the past). But sustainable organic and bio-dynamic farming is possible as is the humane treatment of farm animals prior to their arrival on the dinner table.

Veganism and vegetarianism (whilst fine by me) are not requirements of environmentalism or activism. And such arrogance is unhelpful to the environmental movement.

Sorry to hear how things ended up...Grenpeace was out into the ocean to make whalers stop whaling..and had to rescue them...but tragically couln't avoid the death of a guy.How ironic is life sometimes!
I can only think of Hazutaka as a young guy...as I am..as we are.Just feel true compassion for him and his family...and hope that this loss can be a brick for a "wall" against the whaling.Take care on the Esperanza...and thank you guys.Sara

Hi Nathaniel,

I think many outside Japan will be perplexed by the video episode on Greenpeace's Whale Love Wagon in which one of the show's co-stars eats a whale meat dish in the home of an elderly Japanese woman.

But check out the explanation by Greenpeace Japan's Executive Director of what they're trying to do with this form of communication, and how it's succeeding.

When only 8% of the Japanese public even KNOWS that Japan is whaling, and images of high-seas confrontations are filtered by the Japanese media and never appear in Japan, something different has got to be tried to get the Japanese public aware of this issue: international pressure alone won't stop whaling, we need allies within Japanese culture as well.

There's something in the Art of War about standing in your opponent's footsteps: I think that's precisely what the Spanish co-star of Whale Love Wagon has done in episode 3. All of the episodes are available with english subtitles here.