Green Options

Subsistence activities, including whaling, are a way of life in the traditional Iñupiat Eskimo village of Kivalina.

Yesterday, the residents of Kivalina had the opportunity to enjoy tradition as they have for generations - sharing the first beluga whale kill of the year.  In this time-honored harvest ritual, Monday’s beluga whale kill allowed each of Kivalina’s 77 families to enjoy five pounds of muktuk and meat.

[UPDATE: Japanese Dolphin Slaughter to Continue Despite Current Suspension]

Ric O’Barry reports that the horrific annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji has been suspended due to publicity from the film, The Cove.

September 1st usually marks the first day of the year for the brutal killings, but for the first time the Japanese media has arrived in Taiji en masse, causing the local fishermen to pause while the world takes notice.

Chris Aultman is the helicopter pilot and Aviation Director of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He served for six years in the United States Marine Corps prior to joining the Sea Shepherd team. During that period Chris spent 13 months at sea and became a veteran of the Gulf War.

Aultman’s first experience with the destruction of the world’s oceans was seeing the disastrous effects of the millions of barrels of oil dumped into the Persian Gulf during that war. This and many other experiences caused Chris to start to see the world for what it really was, and nothing was ever the same again.

South Korea is planning to permit whaling again off of the country’s shores if Japan’s request to “formally” whale is granted at this year’s meeting of the International Whaling Commission.

Japan has been whaling illegally for several years, despite the International Whaling Commission’s global ban on whaling since 1986. While South Korea has more or less adhered to the whaling ban, they now would like to do it again.

Just Born — the makers of Marshmallow Peeps — says they’ll be producing whale-shaped, and whale-sized, Marshmallow Peeps in an effort to end Japanese whaling.

The Peep-maker said the joint effort is between Darryl Hannah, The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Greenpeace, and that they are uniting under the moniker PEEP: People for Everything and Everyone on the Planet.

A while back we posted about a bomb threat against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ship, the Steve Irwin. Well, the mystery has been solved: a drunk fisherman called in the threat on his cell phone from his ship across the harbor.

Kenneth James Archer admitted to calling in the threat because of a “dispute” with the crew members of Sea Shepherd. Police tracked him down because he made the call to the police from his cell phone.

Fishing nets often inadvertantly become entangled around whales, and while that is a crime under the Endangered Species Act, hardly anyone ever faces charges. But one unlucky fisherman has been caught in the act.

Robert J. Eldridge Jr. faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine if convicted of three felony charges.

The district attorney says he “did knowingly and unlawfully take a marine mammal, to wit, a humpback whale in waters under the jurisdiction of the United States by acts of pursuit, torment, and annoyance which had the potential to injure said marine mammal in the wild.”

The five Sea Shepherd crew members on board the Steve Irwin found Tasmanian police back at their ship a few weeks after they had confiscated all their video material from the latest campaign. But this time, the police arrived to protect the crew.

“Someone called in a bomb threat about 20 minutes ago, stating that it would detonate in 30 minutes,” a police officer told the crew. “You therefore have 10 minutes left.”

Two British supermarket chains will ensure that none of the seafood products they carry will be supplied by companies that support or engage in whaling or the hunting of other sea mammals.

Waitrose, one of the two stores, has already written to the Icelandic government asking them to reverse their decision to allow an extended whaling quota this year. The other store, Marks & Spencer, said they are drafting a letter to send soon.

Things turned bad for Sea Shepherd when they arrived back to port in Tasmania today. They were greeted by Australian federal police who boarded the Steve Irwin ship with a warrant.

They confiscated “all edited and raw video footage, all edited and raw audio recordings, all still photographs, producer’s notes, interview transcripts, production meeting minutes, post production meeting minutes as well as the ship’s log books, global positioning system records, automatic radar plotting aid, purchase records, receipts, financial transaction records, voyage information and navigational plotted charts.”

Contrary to previous reports, Iceland’s new government announced that they will keep the controversial increased whaling quota that the outgoing Fisheries Minister enacted last month, just one day before leaving office.

Steingrimur J Sigfusson, Iceland’s new Fisheries Minister, said that the country will keep the whaling quota, but added that whalers should not expect the quota to extend five years, as was originally planned. The quota increase has been criticized by environmental groups because it allows the killing of 150 endangered fin whales.