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.

Read more of this story »

[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.

Read more of this story »

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.

Read more of this story »

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.

Read more of this story »

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.

Read more of this story »

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.

Read more of this story »

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.”

Read more of this story »

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.”

Read more of this story »

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.

Read more of this story »

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.”

Read more of this story »

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.

Read more of this story »

On the heals of the dissolution of Iceland’s ruling government, incoming government officials appear to be on the verge of revoking a five-year extension to whaling of fin and minke whales passed just last week by the outgoing government.

Steingrimur Sigfusson, the Minister of both Finance and Fisheries for the Icelandic government, told a news conference on Tuesday:

“We agreed in a government meeting this morning to send a formal warning out to those with vested interests in whaling, saying that the recent decision of the ex-minister of fisheries about increasing the whaling quota for the next five years is now being reconsidered.”

In one of its final acts before stepping down over the country’s mounting economic crisis, the center-right government of Prime Minister Geir Haarde announced last week that it would allow whaling of fin and minke whales for another five years.

The announcement sparked an uproar in the conservation community, particularly from vocal Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson, who encouraged an economic boycott. “We’re going to say to people around the world to not buy Icelandic vodka, sweaters, and fish, to not go as tourists to Iceland and to not use Iceland as a refueling station for private jets,” said Watson from his boat, The Steve Irwin, in the waters of the Southern Ocean.

Iceland is one of the few countries left that occasionally shows interest in hunting whales, and they are no stranger to the intervention of Watson and the Sea Shepherds. In 1986, the anti-whaling group sunk half of Iceland’s whaling fleet while docked at Reykjavik harbor, claiming the destruction of the ships was the reason the whaling industry in Iceland stalled for 20 years.

Image: CC licensed by flickr user wili_hybrid

Daryl Hannah joins the crew this time around. Did having a celebrity onboard (outside of Captain Paul Watson) change the crew dynamics at all?

We have had many celebrities on board our ships over years. Daryl was great and was well liked by the crew. She quickly became one of the crew and even made dinner for us one evening!

Is she really a mermaid?

Sadly, no.

During the fifth episode of last season you, when the ship docked for repairs, you remained behind due to helicopter corrosion. How difficult was it to make that decision?

This was a necessary decision but it was very difficult for me to inform the Captain that he would be returning without me. We have since solved the corrosion issue by constructing a new heli-deck and hanger on the stern of the Steve Irwin which protects the helicopter.

Are you and the chopper a packaged deal? Could you have continued on with the crew?

I have two jobs at Sea Shepherd: Aviation Director and Campaign Coordinator. Besides being a pilot, I am responsible for the logistical support for our helicopter and the Steve Irwin . When I made the decision to not to return with the helicopter on the second leg of Operation Migaloo, I returned home and supported the ship remotely during the rest of the campaign. I also worked with our maintenance base in Melbourne to get the helicopter ready to return to sea again.

Life on the Steve Irwin looks pretty treacherous flash bombs, crew members taken hostage, and Captain Paul Watson being shot. Is there any part of that experience that doesn’t translate on TV?

I think that the show is accurate in its portrayal of life at sea on board the Steve Irwin. Every moment is not exciting however and we all have our own routines to get us through the slow days. Everyone is different in this regard but we all find a way.

You guys have been called everything from eco-terrorists to pirates in the press. Has your reception by the general public reflected that at all?

The Australian people have been the most supportive by far. It never ceases to amaze me how much support we receive there. That said, we have supporters all over the world that are just as loyal. Without them, we would not be able to go to sea.

When the campaign’s over, what’s the first thing you do when you get home?

I get in my Jeep and go camping in the high desert with my family.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is calling for a complete economic boycott of Icelandic products after the country’s announcement extending their illegal commercial whaling campaign into the next five years.

Last year, Iceland killed nine endangered Fin whales. A few months back they began exporting the meat from the endangered whales to Japan, which is a clear violation of international law. This year, they want to kill 150.

Read more of this story »

Until now.

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

[UPDATE: Dolphin Slaughter in Taiji's 'Cove' Suspended]!

The Cove exposes an atrocity of unimaginable brutality. The dolphin slaughter depicted here is committed yearly and without knowledge of the general Japanese public, even though they could be buying highly-toxic mercury-laden dolphin meat disguised as fish from their local supermarkets.

Read more of this story »

Anti-whaling activists aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel ‘Steve Irwin’ have covered a whaling ship with a smelly cocktail of rotten butter, methyl cellulose and indelible dye.

The unconventional sliming operation was carried out in a bid to intimidate the Japanese whaler, Kaiko Maru, into moving out of Australian Antarctic territorial waters. According to Peter Hammarstedt, the Sea Shepherd’s second officer, “this is one stinky, slippery ship.”

Read more of this story »

The Brazilian government has today signed a federal decree establishing the Brazilian Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary, which will drastically increase protection for all cetacean species along the country’s entire 5,000 mile long coast.

According to José Truda Palazzo, Jr., Brazilian Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission, “the initiative sends a clear and powerful message to the international community in relation to Brazil’s commitment towards whale conservation, and also reinforces our campaign for a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary to be established in the entire oceanic basin.”

Read more of this story »

Greenpeace issued a lengthy statement on their website in an attempt to further distance themselves from Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd yesterday. With an aim at setting the record straight, Greenpeace made the statement out of frustration with what it claims are lies and falsehoods propagated by Watson, compounded by a general public misconception that Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are associated with one another.

Greenpeace takes issue with what they describe as a fundamental difference in the anti-whaling tactics practiced by each organization. It is interesting to note how Greenpeace characterizes and differentiates their tactics versus that of Sea Shepherd, particularly their characterization of what constitutes violence.

Read more of this story »

Read more of this story »

Prior to the advent of modern whaling techniques in the 19th century, Fin whales were largely immune to predation by humans. However, modern methods have allowed an estimated 90,000 Fin whales to be caught in the North Atlantic up until around the late 1980’s, with some subsistence catches in Greenland continuing. Populations in the Pacific and Antarctic regions are less well known.

The Fin Whale is currently listed in appendix 1 of the CITES list of endangered species. This list aims to protect endangered species by preventing international trade except when import is for non commercial reasons. However, Iceland along with Norway and Japan hold reservations to this listing. This effectively means that these countries have opted out of this area of the CITES convention, allowing them to trade this species. The catch rates set by the International Whaling Commission have been set at zero since 1976, however this does not apply to Iceland, Norway or the Russian Federation which have all objected to this provision.

Read more of this story »

The announcement by Japan’s Fisheries Agency that Sea Shepherd crew will be arrested if they disrupt Japanese whale killing operations has done little to stop the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The direct action animal rights organization, as seen on Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars”, says they are “undettered” by the threats.

“When you are willing to die for a whale, the threat of arrest is somewhat trivial,” said Captain Paul Watson. “It can only further our cause of defending the whales if the Japanese take Sea Shepherd crewmembers hostage and haul them back to Japan for prosecution. The diplomatic, political and jurisdictional issues will be profound.”

Read more of this story »