Sea Shepherd on IWC/Faroese Hunt

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SEA SHEPHERD INTERNATIONAL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

July 6, 2000

SEA SHEPHERD TAKING ACTION TO STOP WORLD'S LARGEST WHALE HUNT

- " Time for talking is over "

 

As the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission ends in

Australia, half a world away the environmental activists who pioneered

direct action in defense of whales and marine wildlife are closing in on the

Faroe Islands with a single aim: Shut down the world's largest and bloodiest

slaughter of whales.

 

The Ocean Warrior, flagship of Sea Shepherd International, will arrive in

the waters of the Faroe Islands -- a Danish protectorate in the North

Atlantic that slaughters up to 2,000 pilot whales a year -- early tomorrow

morning, with Captain Paul Watson at the helm and more than half a dozen

international media teams on board.

 

" The politicians are done posing in Australia, " said Watson, president of

Sea Shepherd. " The compromises have been struck, the rules have been bent,

the offenders have gone unpunished, and the world has been dragged another

half-step closer to believing that the slaughter of even more whales is

okay, and opposing it is culturally insensitive. The IWC is the perfect

example of the reason why individuals ultimately must take matters into

their own hands to halt practices that are simply wrong. "

 

The Faroese pilot whale hunt is a " drive hunt " similar to the Japanese

dolphin slaughter that shocked Australia last week when a videotape of one

such hunt was shown at the IWC meetings. Thousands of whales, along with

several hundred dolphins and a number of orcas and bottlenose whales, are

herded into shallow bays by fishing boats, gaffed, hauled onto shore, and

butchered en masse. The Faroes have the highest standard of living in Europe

and largest per capita fishing fleet and seafood catch in the world. The

pilot whale hunts are a relic of the islands' Viking past, carried out in

the name of " tradition. " The meat of the whales is laden with mercury at

levels considered unsafe for humans and especially harmful to children.

 

Sea Shepherd has orchestrated a continent-wide boycott of Faroese seafood

over the past nine months, with the result that four of the largest food

importer/distributors in Europe have agreed to terminate their contracts

with the Faores -- a loss of more than 20,000 retail outlets -- until the

hunt is halted.

 

When a Sea Shephed vessel first came to the Faroes in 1985/86, it was

attacked by Faroese police boats firing tear gas. Faroes Prime Minister Atli

Dam finally promised Captain Watson that the pilot whale hunt would be made

more humane via cooperation with the IWC and UNEP, and children would no

longer be involved in the slaughter. The hunt remains an exercise in abject

cruelty, and children are still involved. Sea Shepherd will not negotiate

further with the Faroes home rule government for anything other than the end

of the hunts. Cetacean drive hunts are a violation of the 1979 Bern

Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.

 

" The world is caught in a struggle over the extension of ethics to include

lives other than our own, " said Sea Shepherd Information Director Andrew

Christie. " Against the old belief in the right of total human dominance and

exploitation of nature is the newer idea that other sentient beings have an

equal right to live and that there is never justification for the infliction

of suffering. Our crews engage in active resistance in defense of the

natural world. "

 

Sea Shepherd was founded in 1977 after Watson, having led the first

Greenpeace whale and seal protection campaigns, left the organization he

co-founded in order to take more direct action. Sea Shepherd has rammed,

disabled, or sunk nine illegal whaling, driftnet, and dolphin-killing

vessels in the course of enforcing international conventions prohibiting

whaling and destructive fishing practices.

 

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Sea Shepherd International

P.O. Box 2616

Friday Harbor, WA 98250

(360) 370-5500

http://www.seashepherd.org

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