Sea Shepherd Prepares to Attack the Japanese Whaling fleet in Antarctic Whale Sanctuary : Melbourne Indymedia

December 23rd, 2005

I am sending this e-mail from our ship the Farley Mowat to a small list of friends and supporters.

We are down off the coast of Antarctica about 180 miles off the Mertz Glacier and the Adelie coast. We are about five hours from interception of the Japanese whaling fleet. We are presently on an interception course. I am anticipating a confrontation with the Japanese whalers in a few hours.

Apparently, we have been warned that the Japanese have firearms and that they intend to aggressively resist us. We anticipate that we may sustain some damage but our objective is to shut down their illegal activities and we will risk losing the ship if need be to further that objective.

The crew are ready and eager to engage the Japanese whalers. We will have a helicopter in the air and three inflatables on the water during the confrontation to film the intervention.

I want you all to know that I am down here with 43 dedicated and courageous volunteers who have given up their holidays with friends and family to be here to defend the Piked and Fin whales from the merciless grenade tipped harpoons of the Japanese fleet.

We anticipate a battle today. I have been working towards this showdown with the Japanese fleet for 25 years. Now at last, their ships are within striking distance and we will do everything we can with the resources at our disposal to shut down their illegal slaughter of these gentle and intelligent creatures.

We may lose our ship and find ourselves in our lifeboats within the next few hours. I am quite sure we will sustain damages. But I want you to know that there is nowhere in the world that we would rather be at this moment, and that there is nothing else that we can imagine doing other than what we are doing right now.

For this holiday season, we want to give a gift of life to the whales and if we can stop this fleet, if we can stop the killing, we will be very happy. I want to enter the New Year knowing we have stopped these killers.

For all of you who have supported our efforts, thank-you. You helped to put us here where we want to be. We are grateful. This is a glorious way to end this year, down here at the bottom of the world amongst magnificent icebergs in a sea of whales, seals, penguins and birds fighting the most ruthless killers in the world.

I hope that within 25 hours, if we still have a ship and if we still have communications that I will be able to report to you the consequences of our intervention.

Happy Holidays

Captain Paul Watson and the crew of the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat.

For further updates contact http://www.Seashepherd.org

10:00 Hours: P.S. Moments ago, dozens of Piked whales (Minke whales) passed by us clearly agitated and swimming furiously, surfacing to breathe every 30 seconds. The last time i remember seeing this behaviour was when we encountered the Soviet whaling fleet years ago and saw frightened Sperm whales fleeing the area. I take this as a sign that the whalers are very close.

Open Invitation

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is starting a chapter in Melbourne Australia which will, initially at least, represent the whole of Australia. We are looking for volunteers to make it happen!

A meeting is being held Tuesday 24th January at 7pm 288 Brunswick st Fitzroy, near Johnson st.

The purpose of the meeting is to bring together people who wish to work on Sea Shepherd campaigns which largely involve:

* Fund and awareness raising.
* Networking, finding contacts in Melbourne for when the ship comes in.
* Developing a support network for the Sea Shepherd in Australia.
* There will be some Administration.
* Anything that will help Sea Shepherd that people wish to undertake.

An office has been donated free of charge, our only outgoings will be phone calls. This chapter of Sea Shepherd will be making its main objective to support the Sea Shepherd in any way we can, learning from past mistakes from other Sea Shepherd chapters and respecting Paul Watson's / Sea Shepherd's decisions and past leanings. We primarily want to help Paul Watson do his job.

Please send this invitation to anyone that may be interested in joining/donating to Sea Shepherd and/or volunteering time for the Sea Shepherd Australia.

RSVP Tim Midgley -- tim@seashepherd.org

Tuesday 24th January at 7pm 288 Brunswick st Fitzroy, near Johnson st.

I'm crying and happy to hear that some of our species (the Sea Shepherd crew) are willing to stand up for other unlucky inhabitants of the planet.
If the whale slaughter was not happening in one of the most isolated parts of the planet, I hope everyone who is on the side of life, as opposed to planet death, would be there.
It's great that a local chapter of the Sea Shepherd Society is forming.
I hope that the crew and ship survive the confrontation, and that the whalers withdraw and give up their grisly murders...
Hurray for the Sea Shepherd !!!

I went off of Sea Sheppherd after seeing a self-promoting doco where they rammed and sank a Thai fishing vessel. The Thai ship and it's crew were obviously dirt-poor and had anyone been killed their families would have starved... Besides which human lives are more important than those of big dumb fish.

Can't fucking talk about saving a bunch of whales without inciting an other festival of race hate?

Wanna use some of that Aussie uranium to blow them up and poison the oceans again?

this is an amazingly inspiring event. I wish more people could stand up to injustice like this.

best wishes.

I think what the Sea Shepherds are doing is great! They really need to get their hands on something that will generate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can neutralize the whaling ships without harming the crew. Barring that however, I would much rather see the whales saved before the humans trying to hunt them.

Thank you Greenpeace and Sea Shepherds!

We are all lucky to have groups like the Sea Sheppard CS to enforce the laws that countries do not.