Canada Violates French Territorial Waters to Spy on Sea Shepherd

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Canada Violates French Territorial Waters to Spy on Sea ShepherdThis morning the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat was overflown six times by an aircraft bearing the marks of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).The Farley Mowat and her crew were anchored off the French island of Miquelon. This meant that the Canadian aircraft had entered French airspace to spy on Sea Shepherd.Yesterday the Farley Mowat had to leave the dock at the French island of St. Pierre after angry French and Newfoundland fishermen attacked the ship and cut the mooring lines with axes setting the ship adrift in the harbour without power.Captain Alex Cornelissen and Chief Engineer Willie Houtman acted quickly and started up the engines just before the ship would have struck some rocks. Starting up the engines cold did cause some damage to the machinery which

is presently being repaired by the ship’s engineers as the ship sits at anchor.Animal Planet cameraman Simon Houtman was assaulted on the dock by a fisherman with an axe as French police looked on and did not intervene. The axeman narrowly missed Simon as he fell backwards to escape the attack.About twenty fishermen attacked the Sea Shepherd ship in support of the sealers.One French fishermen yelled that the seals were “rats” and should be exterminated.The French fishermen, like their Newfoundland counterparts had the cod fishery collapse in 1992, wiping out the once thriving economic base of these French owned islands.“What they refuse to admit,” said Captain Paul Watson, “is that the cod were wiped out by the gross incompetence of the Canadian Department of Fisheries

and Oceans, the same incompetence that recently killed four sealers. There were once forty million seals on the East coast and now with seals reduced to 10% of their original numbers, it is obvious that it is not the seals that killed off the fish. The fishing industry collapsed because of greed and mis-management.”The Canadian government policy is to blame the seals and to focus hatred on seal defenders as a way of detracting from their own incompetence.The crew of the Farley Mowat will be returning in a few days when the slaughter resumes to once again document the brutality of the sealers.Today the Magdalen Islanders are burying three of the four sealers who drowned last week.Yesterday evening Captain Watson was asked on Atlantic television if he was ready to apologize for stating that the slaughter of

325,000 sealers is a “greater” tragedy than the loss of the four men.Captain Watson said, “I apologize for being a Canadian and being associated with the most sadistic and barbaric industry on the face of the planet.” The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society believes that the deaths of the men is a tragedy and that there should be a full investigation into the circumstance that cause their death.“It should not be difficult to determine the cause,” said Captain Watson. “The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans authorized hundreds of small wooden and aluminum hulled non-ice class vessels to venture forth into extremely dangerous ice conditions. He placed men on the ice to butcher seals without providing adequate Coast Guard protection. The Coast Guard towed a vessel through the ice at excessive speed and without proper precautions. This was not an accident.

This was manslaughter, and Loyola Hearn is the man responsible for their deaths although he will try and use Sea Shepherd as a scapegoat with his attempts to demonize us as extremists.When did documenting the cruelty against the seal pups become an extremist act?” Hearn has told the Canadian media that Sea Shepherd will be charged for documenting the cruelty on the ice. He was not specific on what charges have been laid and he has not informed Sea Shepherd or the crew of the Farley Mowat that charges have been laid.It is the position of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society that the Society has done nothing illegal. The vessel have never entered Canadian waters and has the right of free passage under international maritime laws.“If the Canadian Coast Guard attempts to board the Farley Mowat, a Dutch ship in international waters,” said Dutch captain

Alex Cornelissen, “I will consider that an act of war.” http://pets.Fortheanimals7/join