Should the crew of the Sea Shepherd board whaling ships?

Yes

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by Aran Mathai

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The case in favour of the Sea Shepard Conservation Society's boarding of the illegal Japanese whaling fleet is overwhelming. There is really no justification for illegal whaling and a very strong justification for the Sea Shepard taking non-violent action to stop it.

Firstly to understand this incident we must understand the context of the action. Commercial whaling is prohibited under international law. The law does however, allows the killing of whales for research and thus the Japanese whaling fleet claim to be acting within the law. This claim is rejected worldwide in both the political and scientific community. The claim is utterly ridiculous, with a level of believability comparable to a drug dealer claiming all the cut lines of cocaine he is selling are really just icing sugar! So the whalers are acting legally, they are pirates.

What can be done about these pirates? While Governments will pay lip service to opposition to criminal whalers they refuse to act to stop them. International law does however allow for third parties to enforce the law, mush like citizens arrest powers in domestic law, and that's where Sea Shepard steps in. Sea Shepard uses non-violent but confrontational tactics to actually prevent whales being killed. There tactics include throwing non-toxic stink bombs on to the deck of the whaling ships, there tactics are so effective that the whalers have turned and run on many occasions and have gone home under their kill quota.

Sea Shepard is a very small non-profit group, so they can't stop every whale from being killed by the criminal whalers, so a permanent solution is required. The issue must be kept in the media to ensure Governments worldwide are pressured to take action. With this in mind Sea Shepard decided to board the boat of the illegal whalers and deliver a message informing them of the fact they are acting illegally, in the hopes of international news coverage. It worked! The media took notice more people were reminded of or exposed to the issue, so it had the desired effect.

Whales are complex and intelligent animals and the killing of these animals with harpoons is far from humane, many of us have seen the footage of whales thrashing in pain and slowly, painfully dying, how can this be justified? Is the boarding of a criminal whaling ship to deliver a letter really even worth controversy?

The bravery of the Sea Shepard volunteers who choose to risk there lives to save these beings should be acknowledged rather than condemned.

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