Sea Shepherd condemns slaughter of 122 mother whales
Sea Shepherd condemns slaughter of 122 mother whales
New figures released at the recent
International Whaling Commission (IWC) Scientific Committee
meeting show that 122 whale mothers were slaughtered as part
of the Japanese Government's illegal Antarctic whale hunt.
"Its outrageous that the killing of whales inside an established whale sanctuary continues, with the bloody cruel murder of 333 protected minke whales, 122 of them being expecting mothers, meaning in reality 455 whales are now not swimming freely in our oceans maintaining humanity's primary life support system, our oceans,” said Sea Shepherd Australia's Managing Director, Jeff Hansen.
"There is still an option for governments to take Japan to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, this is a forum where Japan can be challenged over its poaching activities. Obligations under the Law of the Sea Convention include mandatory dispute resolution, the protection and preservation of the marine environment, and duties to cooperate. International law professor and whaling expert Tim Stephens said Australia could put a stop to the practice by taking Japan to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. It could be argued Japan is not meeting its international obligations to sustainably protect whales. The tribunal has a system of mandatory dispute settlement, that's very difficult to opt out of. There's really very little Japan could do about it. Sea shepherd is also calling on the Australian government to send a vessel to oppose whaling by Japan, this is the promise they made to the people of Australia and what the majority of Australians want to see done, ” stated Mr Hansen.
“Sea
Shepherd is currently not doing the whale defence campaign
off Antarctica against the Japanese whaling fleet. The
reasons being that due to Sea Shepherd's over a decade of
defending the Antarctic whales, this facilitated and
pressured the Australian and NZ Governments taking Japan to
the International Court of Justice, where they were found to
be illegal. To which Japan launched a new whaling program of
doubling their killing grounds and dropping their self
allocated quota from 1035 whales down to 333. This meant
that even at our best years down there sending all of our
fleet and global funding, we would struggle to save any
whales, however by default due to our work over the years we
are saving over 700 whales each year,” Jeff Hansen
concluded.
Paper on Antarctic whaling kill numbers
present to IWC meeting:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/67kxrhpzkr08jfi/whaling%20papers.pdf?dl=0