a whale of a time

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Pro-Whale Protesters Heckle Japan's Ambassador on Whale Watch

 

July 27, 2006 — By Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Protesters shouting " Stop the killing " heckled

pro-whaling Japan's ambassador to New Zealand on Thursday as he took part in a

government-hosted whale watching excursion, media reports said.

 

Ambassador Masaki Saito joined a group of Asian diplomats on the cruise off the

South Island town of Kaikoura -- just a month after Japan led an international

push to reintroduce commercial whale slaughter.

 

A bus carrying the diplomats and their host, Conservation Minister Chris Carter,

was met by 10 black-clad anti-whaling protesters carrying harpoon-shaped sticks,

Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand reported.

 

Waving banners reading " Nippon Whale Killers, " protesters forced the bus to stop

briefly as it arrived.

 

A traditional Maori welcome for the diplomats was interrupted by activists

shouting slogans through a megaphone from the roof of a neighboring house.

 

At the wharf where the trip began, protesters used a crane to hoist an old food

freezer painted with the words " Whales Don't Live in Freezers " -- a reference to

Japan's sale of meat from whales killed during its so-called " scientific " whale

hunt each year.

 

" Whales are not for eating, " the group shouted to tourists as their vessels

returned from whale watching excursions on the nearby bay.

 

Saito was reported to be " looking embarrassed " and " doing his best to avoid the

media " after his whale watching trip, on which two Sperm whales were sighted.

 

Carter said the trip was an opportunity to demonstrate the value of whale

conservation.

 

" Here we have one of the most successful eco-tourism whale watching businesses

in the world, hundreds of thousands of tourists, millions of dollars, and they

rely on those whales swimming up from the Southern Ocean for their business, " he

told reporters.

 

" They also want the ambassadors, particularly the Japanese ambassador, to see

that there is a great value in living whales as the source of employment and

opportunity for people, " he said.

 

New Zealand and Australia were among Japan's harshest critics when Tokyo last

month won a symbolic one-vote majority in favor of ending the 20-year-old

international moratorium on commercial whaling at the International Whaling

Commission meeting at St. Kitts in the Caribbean.

 

Source: Associated Press

 

 

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