Sunday - January 15, 2006

Human Shield Goes For A Swim

I’d like to think this activist probably “greenpeed” all over himself when the harpoon came at him. The ongoing war between Japanese whalers and Greenpees is escalating. Today, the whalers started taking pot shots at the envirowhackos. Lots of great quotes in the story below, not least of which is “he swallowed a lot of seawater and whale blubber but he is alright”. There’s a joke there somewhere. I just gotta harpoon it ...

Stakes Raised In Whaling Clash
(NEWS.COM.AU)

A Greenpeace activist was thrown overboard when a Japanese whale harpoon was launched across an inflatable boat in the Antarctic seas yesterday. The incident has forced Greenpeace to rethink their human shield style protest against Japanese scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean. The Japanese says Greenpeace is taking the risks for the sake of public relations.

A harpoon from Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru No.2 was fired directly over the Zodiac inflatable boat, which was shadowing a minke whale in Antarctic seas. Greenpeace chief executive Steve Shallhorn said the harpoon had flown within a metre of the inflatable. “Greenpeace had been doing what it has been doing for three weeks – putting out inflatables between whales and harpoons,” he said.

“The harpoon impacted on the whale but the towing rope got caught on our boat. “And as the whale began to sink it put our boat in jeopardy. “The rope got taut and threw one of our people into the ocean.” Canadian activist Texas Joe Constantine, the second mate on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, struggled in the water for a short time before getting back into the boat.

“He may have swallowed some seawater and whale blubber but he is all right,” Mr Shallhorn said. He said the whalers were becoming frustrated with the success of the protest and were starting to take more chances. But he said the new tactics would not deter Greenpeace. “They have killed far fewer whales then they would have without us being around,” he said.

Greenpeace spokesman Shane Rattenbury said the protesters had prevented the ship from harpooning the minke whale for over an hour, but the harpoon operator decided to fire when he believed he had a clear shot. The Greenpeace spokesman said he feared the whalers were taking the confrontation to a new level. “Yesterday took it to a new level – we are very concerned about that,” Mr Rattenbury said on Sky News.

“There is definitely an increasing level of tensions down here and the harpooners are certainly starting to take shots that perhaps a week or two weeks ago they would not have taken. “So it is certainly forcing us to think about our tactics and we might have to look at a different way of doing things.”

- Read more of this GreenPees silliness here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/15/2006 at 10:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Environment •  
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