The Esperanza, a Greenpeace protest vessel, has chased the lead ship in a Japanese whaling fleet out of its Southern Ocean hunting grounds. The Esperanza pursued the Nisshin Maru for 24 hours over hundreds of kilometers before it left the area where the fleet was planning to slaughter 1,000 whales. Humpbacks, which haven’t been hunted in over 40 years, were also on the menu, along with Minke and Fin whales. Greenpeace expects that the Japanese boats will refuel, via the Oriental Bluebird tanker, before returning to the hunt.

Greenpeace Japan campaigner Sakyo Noda said, “We came here to stop the fleet from whaling and we have done that. Now they are out of the hunting grounds they should stay out.” Though whale meat is sold on the Japanese market, Tokyo claims the slaughter is for scientific research. Me thinks the sinking of the Nisshin Maru would also be good for scientific research.

Australia’s Labor government, which opposes the hunt, says it will use the Customs ship Oceanic Viking to gather evidence for a potential international court case against Tokyo. However, the Australian ship is nowhere to be seen. “It’s almost a month since Labor promised that Oceanic Viking would be out on the high seas — weeks and weeks later the ship has still not caught up with the Japanese fleet,” opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said. “If you make a bold promise to the world and don’t keep it, it sends a message to the Japanese that we are only kidding, we weren’t serious and we were just playing a domestic game.”

source