SHARK ON THE MENU

By Max Showalter • mshowalter@journalandcourier.com


September 4, 2008

On Sunday, "Stanley" was swimming in the warm waters off the coast of Key West, Fla.

Today, the 37-pound, 5-foot-long hammerhead shark is resting on a bed of ice at D&R Fruit & Meat Market, 105 N. Creasy Lane in Lafayette.

On Saturday, the fierce looking shark will be roasted by D&R owner Pat Johnson, who will give out free samples of the meat as long as it lasts.

"The only difference between this and a 400-pound hammerhead is the length and girth. On Saturday we'll bone it out and cook it," Johnson said. "It will be just like our hog roasts, but it will be a shark roast. We're going to have a good time and enjoy some shark."

The shark will be on display at the store from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and Friday, and the free samples will be available after 3 p.m. Saturday. That might attract some fans heading home from the Northern Colorado-Purdue football game at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette.

The shark will be served at D&R Barbecue and Catering, which also is in the D&R Plaza.

"This is the first time we've had anything like this. I'm looking forward to Saturday and seeing what Pat does with it," said D&R seafood manager Dave Gray.

He gave the "Stanley" moniker to the hammerhead shark that was caught Sunday in 1,000 feet of water by a Key West fishing boat captained by Tim Lycke.

The store frequently has sea bass, halibut, mako shark, oysters and other shellfish available for customers to purchase.

"What I think is great is that Pat tries to educate people," said Lafayette resident Kyle Wilcrout, who is a chef and got a good look at the shark while shopping Wednesday.

"I frequent this place all the time. It's hard to find a grocery store that has the things I'm looking for."

Please comment on this article in the newspaper & if you live in the Lafayette Indiana area...please try to get there Saturday and protest this bbq. Spoil their "good time"

SLAUGHTER OF BABY SEALS

On the day IFAW was founded in 1969 to end Canada’s commercial seal hunt, the harp seal population was on the road to extinction. Since then, the campaign to save the seals has become an icon of the animal welfare movement.

IFAW’s most significant achievement has been the securing the European ban on the import of whitecoat harp and blueback hooded seal pelt products. This single success eliminated the primary market for seal fur and saved well over a million seals.

By continuing the campaign long after many other groups gave up the fight, IFAW has blocked repeated attempts to renew the hunt for whitecoats and bluebacks, helped thwart repeated efforts to weaken the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, and continues to recapture the public attention about the need to protect these animals, and others, from inhumane commercial exploitation.

But thanks to government subsidies and increased harp seal quotas over the past ten years, the seal hunt is back and worse than ever. The animal cruelty to seal pups as young as two weeks old, whether beaten or shot, is both unnecessary and wasteful. As we do every year, IFAW hunt monitors will gather the information we need to continue educating politicians and the public about the many scientific, economic and moral reasons to end the commercial seal hunt in Canada once and for all.

As we again face a renewed hunt, as well as additional threats to the seal population from global warming, there is new hope. Hope such as the recent ban in Belgium on the import of all seal products and the additional momentum behind similar bans in other European countries. But hope most of all, from supporters like you who continue to voice your outrage and gather others to stand with you in telling the rest of the world what is really going on off the East Coast of Canada.

Removing so many animals from any one population places the species at an unnecessary and significant risk. Over the last few years, the Canadian government has raised the annual seal hunt quotas to the highest levels in history, killing almost a million seals in just a three year period. The Total Allowable Catch quota for seals was 85,000 animals higher in 2006 than the “sustainable yield” estimated by Canadian government scientists.

The history of wildlife conservation shows that when large mammals like seals have a price placed on their heads – or hides – the end result is almost always overexploitation. To ensure that wild populations are not put at risk by human activity, a precautionary approach is needed. Yet the DFO management plan does not adequately account for either scientific or environmental uncertainty.

A recent scientific study released by IFAW also shows that in nine of the past eleven years, average ice coverage has fallen to well below levels seen over the last 37 years. This lack of stable ice is negatively impacting the harp seal population which requires sea ice for pupping and nursing its young.

The Canadian government has indicated that it is dedicated to taking ‘real action’ on global warming. Why do they not start by ending the unsustainable and unnecessary hunt for harp seals?

A recent scientific study (Leaper and Matthews 2006) examining the Canadian government’s approach for determining the population status for Northwest Atlantic harp seals revealed that the current approach to managing the seal hunt risks seriously depleting the harp seal population by as much as 50 to 70 percent over the next 15 years.

Cruelty ¨SEAL HUNT"

WHY SEAL HUNTING IS CRUEL ????

Some seals are killed with a blow to the head using a wooden club or hakapik. The sealers stun as many baby seals as they can before going back to kill them. Some seals try to get away, but they are clumsy on the ice, heaving their fat little bodies with an uncoordinated flipper shuffle. Other seals are shot from a distance and then dragged from the ice onto boats using steel hooks.

Two recent independent veterinary reports on the Canadian seal hunt, as well as IFAW video footage, have documented unacceptable levels of cruelty to baby seals. This hunt is a highly competitive activity, carried out over an extensive area, and under very unpredictable conditions. Haste is the rule, as hunters rush to immobilize as many baby seals as possible in the short time available to them.

Seals are routinely clubbed or shot and left to suffer on the ice, before being clubbed again some time thereafter. Some seals are still skinned before being rendered fully unconscious and few sealers are observed checking for a blinking reflex to confirm brain death prior to skinning an animal. As one of the veterinary reports concluded: "Canada's commercial seal hunt results in considerable and unacceptable suffering.”

The Canadian government often misleads the public by comparing the commercial seal hunt to the killing of farm animals in the food industry. Unlike abattoirs, the seal hunt is an unpredictable, unmanageable hunt for wild animals which takes place under hurried conditions. It is precisely these conditions that have led some experts to conclude that this hunt can never satisfy the requirements of a humane hunt.

A Sad Good-bye to Collette

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Collette has been deliberately killed by Australian government bureaucrats.
The whale known as Colin was found to be female after her death and has been renamed Collette.

Upon hearing about the whale known as Colin, the orphaned baby humpback whale lost in Sydney Harbour, I issued the following statement:

Statement from Captain Paul Watson

We view the life of every Humpback whale as valuable and if anything can be done to save the life of this young baby Humpback than we encourage and support every effort to ensure that he survives.
I would propose finding a small cove, inlet or bay to keep Colin safe and then attempting to feed Colin with a mixture of krill and small fish. Finding whale milk is difficult if not impossible. If Colin is old enough to be weaned then this could work.
It is of course an awesome task to care for and provide life saving care to a whale. It truly is a whale of a task but we can’t be faulted for trying, just for refusing to try.
Australians have an opportunity to demonstrate that they do not just talk about saving whales but that they are prepared to do whatever it takes to protect them, including this little orphan.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society wishes to work with the governments both Federal and State, the media, other groups and concerned Australian citizens to mobilize an effort to save Colin.
We can do this!

Captain Paul Watson



Sea Shepherd Australia Director Jeff Hansen began to mobilize a coordinated rescue effort with the Australia Zoo and the government of New South Wales as soon as he heard about the unfortunate whale.

Unfortunately the bureaucrats could not be bothered. They refused to allow us to help Collette and they refused to attempt to feed her or to let anyone else try. They took the easy way out and simply killed her.
Killing is usually the first response of government bureaucrats when a wild species is in trouble. They dismissed our help, they dismissed our suggestions and they dismissed our pleas to spare the life of this baby Humpback.
As I said before Collette was killed, we could not be faulted for trying to save her life but the bureaucrats can be faulted for not even trying.
The “mercy” killing did not go very well. Whales cannot be killed easily as the Japanese whalers have demonstrated for decades. With Collette, first they put a noose and straps around her and then a veterinarian jumped in the water and stuck a syringe near the dorsal fin to sedate her. This was done twice. They then tied her to an inflatable boat and began moving Collette towards the beach.
As they approached the beach, Collette thrashed about with her head and tail coming right out of the water, completely arching her back. She was panicking and in extreme stress. She struggled all the way to the beach, a condemned prisoner on the way to execution by lethal injection.
The energy she expended in her struggles illustrated that she was not as weak as the “experts” had determined. This young whale wanted to live.
On the beach, a tent was erected around her to keep the public from witnessing the execution. They then injected the poison and killed her.
Witness Cherie Curchod said she saw the whale thrashing around near a jetty below her home after she was given more than six injections.
Ms. Curchod said the whale was then tied up and dragged across the bay at Bonnie Doon, to The Basin at Pittwater before she “actively started trying to get away''.

"Then they dragged it to a closed tent and all the while they dragged it, it was flapping it's tail, blowing out of it's head and moving and trying to get away,'' she said.

"It was so upsetting because euthanasia is meant to be an easy death and that whale did not have an easy death at all.''

But National Parks and Wildlife Services spokesman John Dengate said the whale's death was the "best possible result'' in the circumstances.

"That was the best way it could have been done,'' he told reporters. "You put the animal out of its misery.''

He said the calf had been treated with dignity and respect by leading veterinarians but the process of putting down a large mammal was ....distressing and harrowing''.

"To an untrained person, it might not look like the most fantastic thing, but you can't get a better result than that,'' he said.

It is amazing that Dengate would make a statement like “you can’t get a better result than that (death).

There was a better result possible and that was life. We were simply not allowed to provide that chance. An injunction against the execution was secured but the whale was killed before it was served. It was like a sad scene from a movie where the stay of execution for an innocent man is delivered five minutes after his death. And then they loaded her still warm body onto a truck to be taken to the Taronga Zoo for an autopsy and no doubt for research purposes, a chance to dissect a whale.

Sea Shepherd’s offer to help was rejected out of hand. Sea Shepherd Australia director Jeff Hansen pleaded with them to allow the time to attempt to feed her. Sea World in San Diego had fed a young Grey whale years ago named J.J. and had developed a formula. Jeff told them that a formula could be made available within a day. He told them that there was already a milk formula developed by Wombaroo and already tested on baby humpbacks and it was described on their website at http://www.wombaroo.com.au/about_us.htm
Through Tom Baldwin in the Sea Shepherd Melbourne office we contacted Vanessa Pierce in Sydney who was working with Wambaroo. Through Aaron Barnes of Sea Shepherd in Sydney we had a reputable celebrity vet from Bourkes backyard (a big TV show) who had reared and worked with dolphins, his name is Dr Robert Zammit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zammit). Dr. Zammit was willing and able to help feed the calf. Jeff Hansen also spoke with Allan Short on Steve Irwin’s Whale One and Murray Munro from Wildlife Warriors. Allan had also spoken with Jim Antrim from Sea World California and had the exact formula that was used for JJ, the grey whale.

We had the people lined up. We had the formula to feed Collette. We were mobilized and ready to go but the bureaucrats would not stay the execution. They would not give Collette a chance. They just wanted the “problem” to go away.

A carcass of a large female Humpback was found the same day not far away, and DNA testing will be done to determine if this was the mother and if so it would explain how Collette came to be a lost orphan in Sydney harbour.

The death of this whale underscores the tragedy that happens every year when the Japanese drive exploding harpoons into the backs of defenseless whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary where many mother whales are killed and their calves abandoned to die a lonely death far from human eyes under the shadow of the slowly drifting icebergs.

This tragedy also underlies the political reality that the Rudd government has abandoned their efforts to defend the whales from the lethal harpoons of the illegal Japanese whaling fleet. The appeasement of the Japanese government in the name of not upsetting trade will condemn hundreds of whales to an agonizing death once again at the end of the year.

We wish that we still had Senator Ian Campbell championing the whales as the Minister of Environment instead of a man who did more as a rock star than he has done as a politician.

Memo to Peter Garrett

Peter, did you check your balls at the door when you were elected? Why not do one or two of the things you promised to? Now you’re murdering kangaroos, kissing the ass of the Japanese whalers, backing pulp mills, logging and dredging operations. What the hell happened man? Spitting on the burning bed ain’t gonna put out the fire! When you played on the logging road at Clayoquot I loved you man. When you spoke out in song and music for the Earth, we adored you. But now, well now, you’re just another lying craven politician with a self serving agenda. Redeem yourself while you still can – speak out like you used to – hell all they can do is fire you but better to be a hero to the people than a pawn to special interests.

Let’s save the whales!

We could not save Collette, but down off the coast of Antarctica in the Ross Sea, the Japanese intend to slaughter over a thousand whales beginning in January. It is there where we can make a difference without bureaucrats to hinder our efforts.

Last year we saved over 500 whales. We intend to save even more this year.

SHARK EVOLUTION

Shark Evolution

Sharks have been around for a very long time. The first known sharks evolved about 400 million years ago, more than 200 million years before the dinosaurs, and were very common predators. Over 2,000 species have been identified from the fossil record, compared to the 1,000 or so species known to exist today.
The earliest known sharks were very different in appearance from their modern counterparts. Some looked more like eels than fish. Many of them had rounded snouts, rather than the pointed ones we associate with today’s sharks. They had smaller brains and their teeth were smooth, rather than the sharp-edged or serrated teeth typically seen in modern sharks. Their fins were less flexible and manoeuvrable, and it’s likely that ancient sharks were less agile than their modern cousins. But in some ways they were very similar to the animals we call sharks today, having the same cartilaginous skeletons, multiple gill slits and replaceable teeth.

Sharks are classified into eight orders, each according to common physical characteristics that group related species together. Although this seems simple, classifying sharks is not easy, because the actual characteristics used to define them are not always immediately obvious.

Some of the characteristics that are used to differentiate sharks include the number of gill slits, the number and type of fins, the presence of a membrane over the eye, the type of reproduction and even the structure of valves in the intestines. As a result, two species that look quite similar may be members of completely different orders, such as the mako shark and blue shark; while two others that look quite different can be members of the same order – dogfish and hammerheads, which both belong to the order Carchariniformes, are a good example of this.
Classifying sharks is so complicated that even experts cannot agree on precisely which species belong where. Some authorities put the frilled shark, of which there is only one known species, into a separate order, called the Chlamydoselachiformes. Meanwhile others assign a group known as the bramble sharks, whose two species most taxonomists place in the Squaliformes, to its own order called the Echinorhiniformes.

The eight most commonly recognised orders are:

• Heterodontiformes: Bullhead Sharks, containing a single genus and only 10 species including the Horn Shark.

• Orectolobiformes: Carpet Sharks. 34 species, including the Whale Shark, the Nurse Shark and the Zebra Shark.

• Lamniformes: Mackerel Sharks.16 species, including well-known sharks such as the Great White and the Mako.

• Carchariniformes: ground sharks. The most complex group with over 270 species, including Tigers, Hammerheads and Blacktip Reef Sharks.

• Hexanchiformes: cow sharks. Four species, with either six or seven gills.

• Squaliformes: Dogfish Sharks. About 115 species, including Dogfish, Catsharks and Lantern Sharks.

• Squatiniformes: Angel Sharks. About 18 species, all with a distinctive flattened body shape.

• Pristiophoriformes: Sawsharks. Eight species, all with distinctive saw-like snouts.

The great diversity of sharks is reflected in their distribution around the world. Sharks have adapted to occupy every kind of saltwater ecosystem on every continent. They can be found in open oceans, coral lagoons, mangrove swamps, river estuaries and shallow seas. Some species of shark regularly frequent freshwater too, for example - the bull shark is known to travel over 3,000 kilometres up the Amazon River. Many people assume that sharks are mostly confined to warm water. It is true that many well-known species of shark, such as the tiger shark, are best adapted for life in warm tropical seas - although tigers have been found in the icy waters of the north Atlantic off the coast of Iceland. But other species prefer cooler water, including the infamous great white shark, and even the coldest seas are home to a wide variety of shark species. Wherever you live, the chances are there are sharks of some kind very close to your country’s nearest coastline. It’s easy to be misled by the popular image of the shark as a voracious predator. While it’s true that some species do attack and consume large prey, most sharks are adapted to eat other, more abundant local food sources. Ironically, the largest shark of all, the whale shark, lives almost exclusively on a diet of plankton and small fish, while hunters, like white sharks, eat everything from large fish to seals and even whale carcasses. In between these extremes, sharks are known to feed on everything from small crustaceans - such as crabs and lobsters - to squid, schooling fish, bottom-living molluscs and even sea-birds. Perhaps the most famously greedy and opportunistic of all is the tiger shark. All sorts of things have been found in the stomachs of the tiger shark, including vehicle licence plates, gasoline canisters, tyres, lengths of chain and other man-made objects as well as a galaxy of natural items, such as sea snakes, turtles and albatrosses. The decline in the number of sharks has serious consequences for the ecosystems in which they live. Sharks are a vital part of the food chain, and their predatory nature helps to keep populations of their prey species in check. Without sharks to help maintain a healthy balance, marine environments are at great risk of permanent damage. Like hundreds of other fish species, sharks are under increasing pressure from the global fishing industry. As stocks of edible fish decline all over the world, many fishing fleets are turning to sharks as an alternative food source, with potentially catastrophic effects, not just on shark populations, but on the marine ecosystem too. Shark populations take a long time to recover from overfishing. They grow very slowly and take a long time to reach sexual maturity – 20 years or more in some species. When they do reproduce, they produce very few offspring compared to other food fish species. These factors have already endangered several species of shark, particularly in coastal areas with large populations to feed, such as the North Atlantic coast of America. Part of their bad reputation.- Sharks were forcibly and memorably dragged into the public eye in 1975 by Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s legendary film about a man-eating great white. Loosely based around a series of real-life shark attacks in New Jersey in 1916, Jaws was a huge hit around the world. The film has genuine suspense, alongside graphic depictions of shark attacks. Spielberg and his team built an amazingly lifelike mechanical shark (nicknamed Bruce) that was used for many of the film’s scenes, although much of the most memorable footage involved real white sharks filmed by divers from a cage. Subsequent attempts to depict sharks been less well received. 1999’s Deep Blue Sea - a film about a group of scientists who accidentally create a trio of super-intelligent man-eating sharks while researching a cure for Alzheimer’s disease - was altogether less riveting than Jaws and did little to improve the relationship between sharks and humans. One exception was 2003’s animated movie, Finding Nemo, in which Barry Humphries gave a memorable performance as a ferocious Australian shark trying to mend his predatory ways. The shark’s name? Bruce, of course.

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SEA SHEPHERD

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was formally incorporated in the United States in 1981 in the state of Oregon. Previous to this, the idea of Sea Shepherd was formed when Captain Paul Watson founded the Earth Force Society in 1977 in Vancouver BC, Canada. The original mandate of both organizations was marine mammal protection and conservation with an immediate goal of shutting down illegal whaling and sealing operations, but Sea Shepherd later expanded its mission to include all marine wildlife.

With financial support from Cleveland Amory of the Fund for Animals, the society's first ship a North Atlantic sea trawler "the Westella" was purchased in Hull, England (UK) and renamed the Sea Shepherd. It's first mission was to the ice floes of eastern Canada to interfere with the annual killing of baby harp seals known as whitecoats.

In the same year, 1979, the Sea Shepherd hunted down and rammed the notorious pirate whaler the Sierra in a Portugal harbor ending its infamous career as the scourge of the seas.

The success of the seal campaign and the ramming of the Sierra was the start of Sea Shepherd's historical 160 voyages over the next 2 decades, enforcing international laws where no law enforcement existed - on the high seas.

Sea Shepherd continues to accomplish its mission by upholding and enforcing international treaties, laws and conventions of world governments.

Sea Shepherd is committed to the eradication of pirate whaling, poaching, shark finning, unlawful habitat destruction, and violations of established laws in the World's oceans.

To that end, Sea Shepherd assists national and international bodies in the enforcement of international law under authority of the United Nations World Charter for Nature.

Mission Statement

Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization whose mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.
Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations.

International Laws and Charters

Sea Shepherd campaigns are guided by the United Nations World Charter for Nature. Sections 21-24 of the Charter provides authority to individuals to act on behalf of and enforce international conservation laws.
Sea Shepherd cooperates fully with all international law enforcement agencies and its enforcement activities complying with standard practices of law and policing enforcement.
Sea Shepherd adheres to the utilization of non-violent principles in the course of all actions and has taken a standard against violence in the protection of the oceans.

The World Charter for Nature
U.N. Doc. A/37/51 (1982)

The International Whaling Commission (IWC)

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
March 3rd, 1973, Washington, D.C.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
December 10th, 1982, Montego Bay

The Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
November 23rd, 1972, Paris, France

The Convention of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)

The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Convention (NAFO)

International Convention for Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT)

The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment
June 5th -16th, 1972, Stockholm, Sweden

ASEAN Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
July 9th, 1985, Kuala Lumpur

The Berne Convention

Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is dedicated to working towards cooperative agreements between nations to protect species and habitats according to SSCS Mandate.

OPERATION MUSASHI

Captain Watson´s commentary

Can a small handful of volunteers bring down the largest whaling fleet in the world?

The answer is yes!

We have the powerful Japanese whaling fleet on the ropes and all we need to do is deliver the knock-out punch.

The Japanese pirate whalers are hurting bad. They are over fifty million dollars in debt and we have stopped them from getting their full kill quota for three years in a row.

Our first campaign in 2005/2006 saw us chase the fleet for 3,500 miles westward along the Antarctic coast. Although handicapped by a slower vessel we confronted them three times and we kept them on the run. We sideswiped their supply ship and forced them to return to Japan and by the end of the season, the whalers were 83 whales short of their quota. We had cut their kill numbers by 10%.

We knew that we would need a faster ship if we were to return in 2006/2007. We also had the problem that our ship the Farley Mowat was placed under arrest in South Africa because of pressure from the Japanese and Canadian governments.

Thus began the impossible mission of Operation Leviathan. As I searched the globe for a faster ship, Captain Alex Cornelissen deftly managed to cut the Farley Mowat out of Cape Town harbour by departing covertly at 0300 Hours in the morning, following a freighter out in the dark with all lights shut off. They then successfully eluded the South African navy escaping into the Indian Ocean.

Following that daring escape the Farley Mowat weathered extremely severe weather until reaching the friendly port of Freemantle in Western Australia where the ship and crew were welcomed as heroes and Mayor Peter Tagliaferri presented us with the honour of having Fremantle declared our honourary home port.

Meanwhile I had inspected a ship in Malta but it was to expensive to purchase. By June I had located a 2^nd ship in Trinidad and after spending two months working to purchase the vessel we were forced to drop the acquisition due to illegalities with the ship's owner.

With the next whaling season rapidly approaching, we finally found the perfect ship in Edinburgh, Scotland in October. It was the Westra, the retired Scottish fisheries patrol vessel. We bought it during the first week of November thanks to a bank loan from a very loyal and generous supporter. By mid-November the ship was in drydock and by December 5^th, the Westra now renamed the Robert Hunter was heading south down the length of the entire Atlantic Ocean through the Straits of Magellan reaching the Ross Sea by January 19^th, 2007.

I took the Farley Mowat out of Melbourne and met the Robert Hunter in the Ross Sea where our crew constructed a helicopter deck on the Robert Hunter in only two days.

It was not easy. The Japanese government has pressured the Canadian government to pull our flag. We re-registered with Belize but within 9 days, the Belizean flag was pulled but not before we were able to depart from TasmaniaAntarctica. We entered the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary as an unregistered pirate ship. southward towards the coast of

Together the two ships hunted down and engaged the Japanese fleet twice. Then an accident occurred on the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru - a fire that killed one of their crew and crippled the ship.

The Japanese whaling fleet was forced to retreat back to Japan with less than half their kill quota. More than 500 whales were spared.

The Japanese government was furious and forced the British registrar to pull the Red Duster from the Robert Hunter leaving us flagless.

We quickly re-registered our two ships under the Dutch flag, a nation not vulnerable to being dictated to by Japan or any other pirate whaling nation.

In June 2007, I entrusted Captain Cornelissen to take the Farley Mowat to the Galapagos and then onto Iceland for Operation Ragnarok, the campaign to intervene against illegal Icelandic whaling operations.

The Robert Hunter remained in Melbourne to prepare for a return to the Whale Sanctuary in December.

Once again we had the Herculean task of raising the funds for the next campaign.

By the time the Farley Mowat reached the Galapagos, Iceland decided to cancel it's whaling operations and the Farley Mowat turned it's attention to confiscating illegal long lines, intervening against shark poachers and stopping plans by a company called Planktos to dump iron dust into the ocean off the Galapagos.

That summer we investigated and seized 45,000 shark fins and over 100,000 sea cucumbers from poachers and smugglers in Ecuador.

I was awarded the Amazon Peace Prize by the President of Ecuador and a contract was placed on the heads of Sea Shepherd Galapagos Director Sean O'Hearn and myself by the sharkfin mafia of Manta, Ecuador.

Sean was forced to resign at the assistance of his wife and one of our police officer supporters sent me a bullet proof vest.

By the end of the year, Planktos had been stopped. Captain Alex Cornelissen took up the position of Sea Shepherd director for the Galapagos and I was ready to take the helm of the Robert Hunter for the return voyage to Antarctica in a campaign we named Operation Migaloo.

In a move that the late Robert Hunter would have approved of, I renamed the ship the Steve Irwin to reflect the passion of Australians in opposing illegal whaling and to focus on the symbol of the whales of Australia – Migaloo, the beloved white Humpback whale who the Japanese said they would harpoon if they got the chance.

We headed southward on December 5^th after Teri Irwin officially launched the ship under Steve's name. Onboard was a film crew from Animal Planet to begin work on a series to be called Whale Wars.

It was a long, dangerous, and successful pursuit as the Steve Irwin covered over 22,000 miles in three legs chasing the Japanese whaling fleet across the vast expanse of the remote and unpredictable Southern Ocean. We boarded a harpoon vessel creating an international incident that captured headlines around the world. Most importantly we shut down whaling operations to the point that once again the whalers failed to take their kill quota.

Of their quota of 50 Humpbacks they did not take one. Of their quota of Fin whales they did not take a single one. Of their quota of Piked whales they took 582. We saved the lives of 522 Piked whales and a total of 622 whales of all three species.

It was an economic and public relations disaster for the Japanese whaling fleet and their frustration was demonstrated when they threw concussion grenades and shot at our crew, one of the bullets striking me in the chest and a concussion grenade throwing cameraman Ashley Dunn to the deck injuring his thigh.

Fortunately my bullet proof vest stopped the bullet and there were no serious injuries from the confrontation.

We discovered that we could find them and shut down their operations. Our only handicap was the need to refuel. It takes about 10 days to return to port, a few days to refuel and re-provision and another 10 days to return to the fleet. That was when the whales 583 whales died.

If we could secure another ship we could shut them down 100%.

And that is our impossible mission for the present. We can and we will return to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in December with the Steve Irwin. The task now is to find and secure a 2^nd fast ship to relieve the Steve Irwin when it is forced to return to port to refuel.

Towards that end we are working to raise more funds to purchase a 2^nd ship. We also need to raise funds to fuel, outfit and provision two ships.

We won't have any problem crewing the ships. We are being overwhelmed by applications. This is a relief because now we will be able to crew the ship from a pool of many individuals of many skills and abilities. Our last campaign was slightly handicapped by a few quitters and a few faint hearted types who did not seem to understand that to be a Sea Shepherd crewmember requires a rare type of passion and courage. If someone is not willing to risk their life for the defense of a whale they don't belong on our crew. And if they don't understand why we would ask that question they don't belong on our crew.

I personally believe that taking risks to protect endangered species is far more noble and worthwhile than risking one's life to protect real estate, money and oil wells and they pin medals on people who do that.

We fight for life, for diversity and for the future of humanity and all living things and in my opinion that is the ultimate justification for sailing into harm's way.

Which brings us to Operation Musashi.

Miyamoto Musashi is a legend in Japan and I chose the name because Musashi wrote of the strategy of the twofold way of pen and sword. In other words Musashi knew that in addition to aggressive intervention, it was necessary to communicate and educate.

Last year for the first time ever in Japan, the issue of illegal Japanese whaling made the headlines. The reason is that our dramatic and aggressive tactics were news and this enabled us to tag messages to the news stories about the slaughter of the whales.

This has brought us support in Japan from Japanese people who oppose the whale killing policies of their government.

Our interventions are the sword of direct action and the media is the pen and thus our approach is exactly what Musashi had in mind.

A few years ago, everyone told us that fighting the Japanese whaling fleet was a losing cause – the ruthless crimes in the Southern Ocean were being committed by a Yakusa controlled union crewing large ruthless killing machines. The Nisshin Maru was the formidable Cetacean Death Star. The murdering crimes of the whalers were taking place over vast stretches of iceberg studded, frigid, storm tossed hostile seas. We didn't have the money. We didn't have the ships. In other words only a fool would think of venturing into those hostile waters without adequate resources on a Quixotean exercise in futility.

But I remember what my friend Martin Sheen once said to me. "Losing causes are the only causes worth fighting for."

And enough people have called me a fool to the point that I have no problem believing them and thus striking out on the path of the fool like Don Quixote on a hopeless mission to protect innocence and life was, well to be frank, it was very appealing.

And now our hopeless, impossible mission has made such an impact that I now believe we can win this war to drive the criminal whalers out of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

There is no question that we have the moral high ground. The Japanese whalers are targeting endangered and defenseless whale in a whale sanctuary in violation of international law and the moratorium in commercial whaling. They are sadistic killers involved with the Japanese Yakusa in an industry that has no honour and of no necessity to the welfare of the Japanese people.

We are going forth to defend and protect life. We have never injured anyone. We are so non-violent that our ships are vegan vessel. We have never been convicted of a felony crime anywhere in the world. We are volunteers risking our lives to protect life.

The Japanese government can call us eco-terrorists and pirates until Mount Fuji erodes away but the fact remains that we fight for life and they kill for profit.

In this case the good pirates wear black and our Jolly Roger is a symbol of hope for the whales and for the protection of our oceans. We are pirates of compassion and life in a battle to subdue and defeat the pirates of greed and death.

Woody Allen once said that 90% of success was just showing up. In this case he is absolutely right. We just need to continue showing up on the tail of the Japanese fleet, harassing them and intervening against their killing. We need to wear them down by forcing them to endure financial losses every year until they are so far in debt they will have to submit.

We can and we will destroy the Cetacean Death Star. We intend to sink the Japanese whaling fleet – economically. Without hurting a single person we can drive their operation into bankruptcy and we can end the killing.

Your investment in our operations have and will continue to show results.

What is the life of a whale worth to you?

Your trust and support for my crew and I will be repaid with the gift of life for the whales and a gift of promise to the future survival of our oceans.

More information at www.seashepherd.org