Sea Shepherd is willing to share its ressources by having its helicopter flying from one vessel to the other. What do you reply to this kind suggestion:

"We suggest that the Esperanza join forces with the Steve Irwin. Both ships could run on a parallel search pattern along the coast separated by 100 miles with the helicopter flying between both vessels."

For the sake of whales, try to cooperate !

God bless you!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

This is such fantastic news!!! Really really wonderful. Well done all at Greenpeace for a fantastic campaign. Mister Splashy Pants you're a legend!!

You must be really proud guys - congrats and well done. This has made my Christmas, to know that the humpbacks are safe from the whalers, even just for now, is just fantastic.

Lets keep going now and ensure to wipe whaling out altogether in the Southern Ocean. Onwards and up eh?! We're right behind you.

Thank you!

Stay safe.

x
Jenni

unfortunality Japanese will not stop so quickly...come on people! save the whales!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Japan gets the revenue to build its whaling ships from foreign earnings. Whether you own a car, motorcycle, TV, audio system, games console, camera (still or video), computer, printer or any other device that can be made by a Japanese company you can help to stop whaling by cutting off Japan's foreign earnings. DON'T BUY JAPANESE and urge everyone you know to do likewise. It does no harm to write to Japanese companies like Sony to tell them why you will be boycotting their goods and services. With enough bottle we can scare them.

This is good news, for the humpbacks with little respite for the fins and minke's. Sorry to hear about your helicopter. It would have allowed you cover a wider area in your search for the japanese. Why not act as a platform for Sea Shepherds 'tweetie'. This would allow you both to cover a wider area, be more fuel efficient and reduce the searches impact on global warming... Your call... they are offering..

Addo

Hi guys,Im a charter boat captain down here in Provincetown mass. I encounter whales all summer long on fishing trips.
They move me beyond words. I support the work you guys do with all my heart.
Behind you all the way,giveum hell.
Is it possible to adjust the webcam so the prow of the ship is visible in the night hours?
all the best,Capt Jim.

Thank you for keeping your bow headed for the killing!
Wouldn't be surprised if the whalers lie.
Save all you can, be safe and know the whole world is watching thanks to your web cam!!!!
LOVE

Absolutely fantastic news for the Humpys and its very encouraging to see what pressure can do. I just hope that the pressure stays on so that the whole of this cruel practice can be stopped. I fully understand the reasoning behind seeing "the bigger picture" with regards to the Sea Shepherd, obviously gaining support from the Japanese public is extremely important. However, if they find the whaling fleet first and offer you the co-ordinates, would you be able to accept this type of "help"? Obviously you guys know more about this whole situation than i do and so if the answer to this question is no then i still give you my full support. Your doing a fantastic, worthwhile, dangerous job on behalf of us all and for that i will be eternally grateful.

Hi,

I’m a supporter of Greenpeace and cetacean researcher. I have always wondered why GP and even SSCS concentrate anti-whaling efforts in the Southern Ocean, whilst the JARPN II hunt in the North Pacific is ignored by absolutely everybody. This hunt takes sperm, fins, minkes, seis and Bryde’s whales – threatened and vulnerable species, with known long TTDs. I understand there is the SOS, but it is frustrating that this other hunt receives no attention and is allowed to continue and expand. All the best down south, I am proud to be a supporter.

This is great news...it's exciting...but what do they have 'up their sleeve' no rest for the 'valiant whale protectors' keep up the pressure!

Yes i have wondered what they have up their sleeves. What if they have lied and already taken Humpback's and continue to do so before they are found - who will know? And, if they did get found out what could be done? Also, how do we know that they only take their 'quota' of the other poor whales? They could be taking many more but i doubt the whalers are checked when they get back to port, i also doubt they count the struck and lost in their 'quota' either!

Hey Peter,

can you point to more information on the JARPN II hunt in the North Pacific?

Also, for the Americans out there, don't forget to write to your respective Senators and Representatives about this criminal action on the part of Japan (and other nations that try to do 'scientific' whale research). Emailing them is easy. Keep on sending a message at least once a week.

Irene,
While it may be frustrating to many of us as to why Greenpeace does not interact with SeaShepherd, at least you guys are down there. As an American living in Japan, I can tell you it is sad as can be to support anti-whaling policies and groups such as yourself, only to go to the grocery store on the way home to find whale meat on the shelves. Unfortunately, everyone is all about boycotting things. Not buying Japanese will not stop the deaths of the whales. Not shopping at the grocery stores here won't help either, because every store has it. It's a kin to saying, "stop shopping at stores that sell hamburger." What is heart breaking though is to see the product marked down day after day like a bad steak, simply because it does not sell. I read the articles about JARPA II, etc and see where they mention that the people of Japan love and need this oh-so-precious meat...and it's just not true!
Does the Nissin Maru carry AIS? Every ship of that size should be carrying it, and if they are, there are a lot of ways you guys can find them.
Being a sailor myself, I know that holidays spent at sea can be pretty lonely, and I wish you all the best of luck and happy holiday as you sail south to defend those who cannot defend themselves.

This would never happen without youy guys!

Dear Peter,
Thanks for you comment and question on why we are focusing on Antarctic whaling. The Southern Ocean is truly international waters, and responsibility for its protection is therefore shared by all nations. In 1994 the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was established, with only one country voting against it: Japan. Now, there is only one country still whaling in the Southern Ocean: Japan. However the majority of Japanese people do not support whaling on the high seas, and do not know what their government is doing in the whale sanctuary, in their name and with their tax money.
Greenpeace has a long history of involvement in the Southern Ocean; with a small base set up there in the 1980’s we pushed for the creation of world park Antarctica to live up to the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty. The Treaty declares Antarctica a place of peace and science: killing almost a thousand whales with grenade tipped harpoons in a whale sanctuary isn’t science and it certainly isn’t peaceful.
Antarctic waters are hostile and remote, and largely beyond the scrutiny of governments, scientists and people worldwide. We go there to take direct action to prevent whales being killed, as well as to bring scrutiny to a hunt that we believe is not justifiable anywhere, let alone in a whale sanctuary.
Of course, we would like to be in more places taking action against more of the threats to our oceans and our planet, but we simply can’t be everywhere. The majority of the whales killed now are hunted in the waters surrounding Antarctica. We believe that ending whaling in the Southern Ocean will be a key step in bringing an end to whaling in all our oceans.

Hi Karli,

Thanks for your reply. I suspected it was regarding the SOS, and no one expects you guys to be everywhere doing everything.

I am familiar with the base that was set up in Antarctica and the triumphs of getting rubbish removed, more accountability, and assisting with environmental studies. I certainly wish you could do more, and JARPN II is something I would like to see receive more attention, from welfare and population sustainability aspects alone. Trust me, it is not a criticism, more a lament. You have a big enough job directly ahead of you.

Hi Pascal,

There is some IWC information here:

http://www.iwcoffice.org/conservation/permits.htm

and some other information here:

http://www.wdcs.org/dan/publishing.nsf/allweb/F899BE0FD6E4492F80256F3500551527

Try to download:

http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/pubs/jarpn2.pdf

Regarding humane killing, gunner experience of target species in both JARPA II AND JARPN II is lacking, as is suitable calibre of grenade. Knowing that they have recorded long TTDs previously, the GOJ is now less transparent in revealing struck and lost and TTD stats.

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002101.html

You guys do us all proud...keep the pressure on and show the world that peace and love for all creatures and mother earth is the only way...
from one soul to all you guys..
take care and keep up your fantastic work
thankyou all

Please co-operate with Sea Shepherd. Put any differences aside. the Whales are more important.

I seriously doubt public pressure contributed to Japan's desicion on not hunting humpback whales this season. It was probably entirely from political/economic pressure. With that said, Greenpeace probably had little to nothing to do with this desicion. Oh, and Australia's humpback whale population wouldn't have been the least bit affected by this take, as more whales are being recruited into the population each year than would have been taken.

Dear Jonas,

Governments only act when the public demands it from them, and work by organisations like Greenpeace has helped to generate the demand for this problem to be solved. But whatever the reason for this decision, the key thing is that fifty whales will be spared from grenade-tipped harpoons, to live and breed and replenish their populations for another year. But only for another year (or two) which is why we will continue to demand that governments take action.

Regarding the impacts on Australia’s whale-watching industry, the needless killing of fifty humpbacks would certainly have an impact. Humpback whales now exist at a small fraction of their natural level, and what we see even in the feeding grounds and migration routes popular for whale watching are mere remnants of the population. Imagine seeing this magnificent species in their natural abundance instead!

Humpbacks are listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species for a reason: they are in danger. And not only is the population overall under threat, but there are isolated populations from Pacific waters that have shown no sign of recovery from the decimation of past commercial hunting. Whales from these unrecovered populations (which also support whale-watching industries) could well have been in the firing line in their Southern Ocean feeding grounds along with those from populations beginning to show signs of recovery.

The bottom line is that commercial hunting of whales has never been sustainable, and this has been demonstrated time and again. Whales are mammals; long-lived, slow breeding and with few young. They are under threat from a huge range of impacts – for example, a whale dies every ninety seconds drowned in fishing gear. It makes absolutely no sense to add hunting to the list of ways that whales are dying throughout our oceans. This unnecessary threat can be ended with a simple political decision. Scientific research does not require harpoons.

Jonas,

So what sort of inside "political/economic pressure" would have made Japan suspend humpbacks? Why were we getting press reports saying they wanted good relations with countries such as Australia? If you do some backround reading on South Pacific humpbacks you will see what the issues are regarding populations which have been very slow to recover from commercial whaling, feeding/breeding/migration patterns, along with the potential impact on whale watching in Australia and the South Pacific.

Dear Karli,
I'm not going to bother respond with most of what you said because I've heard that nonsense way too many times.
As for the humpback whale populations off Australia being impacted by whaling, you're dead wrong. There are 20,000 humpbacks that migrate along the coast of Australia increasing by about 10% annually. So the population would STILL increase by a significant percent each year even if Japan had continued on with their take of 50 humpbacks.
I do agree about the populations in the South Pacific east of the E1 pop. possibly being negatively impacted by the Japanese take of humpbacks, but most likely most of the humpbacks would have been taken from D and E1.
As all for commercial whaling having been unsustainable, again, you're off. Modern shore whaling in New Zealand only took a small number of humpback whales each year, and would have possibly continued to do so had it not been for illegal Soviet catching of humpback whales to the south.
Iceland took a consistent number of fin, sei, and sperm whales from 1948 to the 1980s, when a smaller number of fin whales were taken (I can't remember if there was a slight decline, or whether a lower quota was given) but the sei whale take remained the same until I believe quotas were lowered.
Same goes for shore whaling in Australia (1946-1962), when illegal Soviet whaling led to the decline of humpback stocks, not the small harvest from the handfull of stations on the Australian coast.
Shore whaling from Norfolk Island (1858-1930s) took a limited amount of humpback whales annually, which doubtfully adversely affected the population that migrated by the island to breed to the north.
Shore whaling in California (1854-1904) took a limited number of gray and humpback whales each year, but had to deal with extensive catching in the lagoons in Baja.
In fact, modern whaling probably had little to no effect on whale populations in its first decade (1864-1875), because Foyn only took a small number of whales when he operated alone, but when competition came first in 1876 and later during the period of free competition (after 1883)that's when populations began to be taxed from hunting.
I could go on and on about how hunting from a single area was sustainable, but then had to deal with catching in other areas targeting the same population(s).
In fact, I believe there were places where, because of political or economic reasons, a station or operation closed down, not because of depletion of the population(s) targeted.
Thomas Welcome Roys and his Danish and Dutch followers in Iceland ceased hunting whales because of the difficulty of the catching methods involved (basically poor rocket design, or something along those lines), not because of overhunting, as they only took a small amount of blue and fin and I believe other species.

And Peter, as stated above I already know about the South Pacific stocks.

Maybe you people should actually do some research on whaling history before making comments. Thanks.

Hi Jonas -

The danger with getting excited about increases in any humpback population lies in the concept of shifting baselines, introduced in 1995 by Daniel Pauly to illustrate the fallacies in making assumptions about fish populations.

It refers to the loss of perception of change that occurs when each generation redefines "what is natural." Pauly developed the term in reference to fisheries management in which fisheries biologists sometimes fail to identify the correct "baseline" population size (how abundant a fish species population was before human exploitation) and thus are working with a "shifted baseline."

The fact of the matter is that regardless of how many humpbacks there are now, they're still at a fraction of their pre-whaling population. The provocative, and for now, failed attempt by Japan to kill 50 humpbacks is obviously a lead in by Japan to a full return to commercial whaling of various whales species, including humpbacks, minkes and fins. Japan makes no secret that its "scientific whaling" is really a push for a return to full-blown commercial whaling, and I've seen no evidence from them - not even a serious claim - that they could kill whales from disperate humpback populations without significant and detrimental impacts.

In addition, any claims that whaling in the past might have been sustainable are effectively cancelled out by history itself - whaling simply wasn't sustainable, for a variety of reasons - economic unsustainability is still unsustainability.

In fact, you seem to be arguing against yourself above - you seem to be saying that whaling would have been sustainable if it wasn't for those pesky whalers who weren't whaling in a sustainable fashion. The fact is, the IWC itself was created to try and mantain whale "stocks" and protect them from over-hunting.

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