Japanese fleet spotted harpooning whales inside sanctuary: Sea Shepherd Australia
Sea Shepherd Australia said today they had captured images of Japanese whaling fleet killing protected whales inside an internationally recognized whale sanctuary.
Anti-whaling activists spotted a fleet of five vessels harpooning and processing at least 4 whales south east of Tasmania on the edge of the Ross sea.
Aerial photos of harpooned whales being processed on the deck of Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling vessel, in waters southeast of Tasmania. Credit: Tim Watters of Sea Shepherd. The group said they knew a fourth whale had also been killed.
“It’s just a gruesome, bloody, medieval scene which has got no place in this modern world,” said Sea Shepherd Australia chairman Bob Brown.
Dr Brown has questioned Abbott government’s resolve against whaling, after the Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, backed away on an election promise to send a Customs ship to monitor the Japanese fleet.
Bloodbath on Nisshin Maru. Credit Tim Watters of Sea Shepherd
“We’ve got a federal court ruling that this whaling is illegal and injunction to stop it,” Brown told reporters. “I don’t know of any other entity or person in Australia who could simply thumb its nose at the Australian Federal Court with an Australian government saying we won’t police it.”
“This criminal behavior by these Japanese whale killers is taking place in front of the whole world, while the Australian and New Zealand governments sit on their hands,” he said.
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