Category: Marine Animals

ACTIVISTS CHANGE THE GUARD ON PUGET SOUND

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1999:

SEATTLE, VANCOUVER––T h e
Sea Shepherds are coming, Bear Watch is
gone, and no one is saying yet what may
become of the Sea Defense Alliance [SeDnA].
Maintaining a vigil off Neah Bay
against Makah tribe whaling for much of the
past two years, and anticipating further confrontations
with the Makah, the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society expects to soon open a
permanent headquarters at Friday Harbor, on
San Juan Island.
The Sea Shepherd fleet operated
from Friday Harbor throughout spring 1999,
but berthed at Seattle during the summer. Sea
Shepherd vessels have been continuously stationed
on Puget Sound since 1996, after many
years of frequent visits, and the Sea Shepherds
have had personnel continuously in the area
since 1995, when the Makah first announced
their intent to resume whaling.

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Russians halt beluga whale killing for sale to Japan

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

HOKKAIDO––Russian whalers on
September 10 reportedly delivered to Japanese
buyers 13 metric tons of whale meat from at
least 36 and perhaps as many as 50 belugas
killed a week earlier in the Okhotsk Sea,
which lies between the Kamchata Peninsula
and Sakhalin Island.
It was the first Russian commercial
whale slaughter since 1986, and its first in
northern waters since 1979.
It will not be repeated, the Russian
government decreed four days later after a
cabinet-level review of the deal in Moscow.
Said International Fund for Animal
Welfare director of commercial trade and
exploitation Karen Steuer, “Reopening the
international trade in whale meat would have
set a dangerous precedent. The Russian decision
shows that Russia sees commercial whaling
for what it i ––an outmoded practice with
no place in modern society.”

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Greenpeacers shot at as whaling season ends

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

 

Deb McIntyre, 28, of Pambula, Court calendar
New South Wales, “was shot at and later
arrested by the Norwegian Coast Guard” on
June 12 after approaching a wounded whale
in Norwegian waters, Greenpeace Australia
reported. McIntyre’s inflatable powerboat
was punctured by the shot, allegedly fired
from the whaling vessel K a t o, but she was
not hurt.
Reporting either different particulars
of the same incident or describing a separate
but similar confrontation, the London
M i r r o r reported one day later that
Greenpeace activists Dave Thoenen of the
U.S. and Ulvar Anhaern, 32, of Norway
were “shot at with a semi-automatic rifle”
from a distance of about 60 feet as they tried
to prevent a Norwegian whaling vessel from
harpooning a minke whale 120 miles off the
Norwegian coast, and “jumped for their
lives as the bullet ripped a gaping hole in the
side of their inflatable.”

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BOOKS: Men & Whales

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

Men & Whales
by Richard Ellis
542 pages, 400+ illustrations, paperback. $30.00. 1991.

Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex
by Owen Chase
144 pages, paperback. $12.95. 1821.
Both from The Lyons Press (123 West 18th St., New York, NY 10011), 1999.

Available in paperback for the first
time are two classic works on the subject of
whales and whaling––Men & Whales, the
encyclopedic history of the human/whale relationship,
by Richard Ellis, and Shipwreck of
the Whaleship Essex, by Owen Chase, the
true narrative of a survivor of the event that
would be among the primary inspirations for
Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. With
the Chase narrative are two briefer accounts
of the same incident by other survivors.

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Dolphin freedom advocates fined $56,000

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

KEY WEST––Dolphin Project founder
and former “Flipper” trainer Ric O’Barry and
Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary founder Lloyd Good
III were on June 10 ordered by U.S. Administrative
Law Judge Peter A. Fitzpatrick to pay combined
civil penalties of $59,500 for allegedly illegally
releasing the former U.S. Navy dolphins Buck and
Luther on May 23, 1996, off Key West, Florida.
Luther, apparently hurt in a fight with
other dolphins, was recaptured the next day. Buck
was caught 13 days later, 40 miles away, reportedly
emaciated, also with injuries.
O’Barry and Good deny that the dolphins
were in seriously bad shape when recaptured, and
argue that the release was not illegal because, they
contend, the Marine Mammal Protection Act did not
then specifically require a release permit. It has
since been amended to add such a requirement in
more explicit language. O’Barry and Good have
until July 10 to decide whether to appeal.

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Whalers’ covert strategy confirmed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

TOKYO, VICTORIA (B.C)– –
Whaling industry revival strategies long suspected
by ANIMAL PEOPLE and the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society were bluntly
confirmed in early June, soon after the annual
International Whaling Commission meeting
ended in Grenada without lifting the 1986
global moratorium on commercial whaling.
Citing Hideki Moronuki of the
Japanese ministry for agriculture, forests, and
fisheries as her source, Mari Yamaguchi of
Associated Press on June 3 reported from
Tokyo that “In a bid to gain support for commercial
whaling, Japan hopes to coax developing
countries to join the IWC by giving
them financial assistance. Aid will be given,”
Yamaguchi continued, “to countries that have
been reluctant to join the IWC for fear of damaging
their diplomatic and economic ties with
the West” if they favor whaling.
Moronuki argued that whales, rather
than aggressive fishing led by the Japanese
fleet, are chiefly responsible for globally
declining catches.

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Jacques Cousteau’s Silent World

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

PARIS––Bernard Violet, author of
a 1993 biography of the late undersea explorer
and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, on June 17
disclosed documents he said he had obtained
since Cousteau’s death that may belie many of
Cousteau’s claims about his early career.
Violet likened Cousteau’s alleged
autobiographical misrepresentations to later
instances in which Cousteau used abusive
techniques to get dramatic film footage of wild
marine mammals––techniques which
Cousteau himself eventually acknowledged,
regreted in public statements, and denounced,
even as the films he made helped to create the
international movements to save whales, seals,
and other marine life.

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What seals, bears, coyotes, lynx, pumas, and foxes have in common

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

The House of Commons fisheries committee in early June yanked and rewrote at a secret meeting a scientific report on the interaction of seals and cod off Atlantic Canada to recommend that seals be totally extirpated from northeastern Newfoundland, the southern and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, and elsewhere “as deemed necessary” to keep seals out of the depleted cod fishery. The rewrite reportedly reversed the findings and recommendations of the committee’s scientific advisors, and was presented to media as “unanimously approved,” while dissenter Peter Stoffer (New Democratic Party, British Columbia) was attending his father’s funeral. The 1999 Atlantic Canada seal hunt ended in June with a reported toll of 244,552 harp seals and 201 hooded seals killed: 89% of the harp seal quota, and just 2% of the hooded seal quota. “Because many seals are shot or clubbed and then escape to die beneath the ice, and because many dead animals are discarded and not properly counted, the actual kill of harp seals in 1999 was probably between 400,000 and 500,000,” projected International Fund for Animal Welfare spokesperson Rick Smith. Many sealers admitted dumping seal carcasses this year, as prices for them collapsed in a glutted market.

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Sea Shepherds fight World Wildlife Fund

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

Between vigils against Makah whaling in fall 1998 and spring 1999
aboard The Sirenian off Neah Bay, Washington, Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society international director Lisa Distefano spent part of the winter helping to
save sea birds after the wreck of the tanker Pallas near the Shallows nature
reserve off the coast of Germany. The Sea Shepherds mustered 60 volunteers,
who eventually rescued more than 1,000 birds, Distefano wrote in the first 1999
edition of The Sea Shepherd Log.
The hardest part of the job, Distefano said, was that “In Germany the
conservation ethic tends to be a hunter’s ethic. The park staff at the Shallows
reserve is steeped in the mentality that if an animal is injured, you kill it. The
reserve workers are basically hunters. They, like staff from Greenpeace and the
World Wildlife Fund, came to the scene with the belief that if a bird had any
contact with oil, the bird is beyond help and must be killed.

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