They have always had ‘spotter’ ships which are lighter more maneuverable ships that go out and find the whales send the coordinates back to the harpoon ships who come and get the whales and then bring them back to the Nisshin Maru for processing. That ship looked a lot like the spotter ships they have always had. Does anyone have any evidence that this is some new ‘security’ vessel they bought to use against the Sea Shepherds?
No, they are not fixed and stationary. They aim them all the time. The only way it would’ve been fixed and stationary is if it was unmanned at the time.
Well, most reports refer to it as a “security ship”. I doubt it is something new but its purpose seems to be spotting the Sea Shepherd bunch and not whales in order to help the whaling fleet avoid the Sea Shepherds. If their purpose was to find whales why do they have sonic “weapons” on board to dissuade humans (which can be heard in the first video linked in the OP)?
FWIW:
Misnomer? No idea but you will find it called that over and over so going with that.
In a previous season, the whalers had a decommissioned factory ship with a huge radar mast installed chasing the SS around. I thought it was just brilliant and wonder why they discontinued the practice. I imagine that any “security” ship is just an idle whaling ship who harasses the SS a bit with no special crew nor equipment. As for their existence, cargo ships near Somalia have a chance of being attacked. The whaling fleet has absolute certainty it will happen.
Very true, but at some point popular opinion becomes open to the “not touching” defense. If the cyclists have a reputation for always doing this and the semi is just staying the course (maybe suddenly changing lanes because there was a stone on the road). Well, who are we to judge and all that.
Doesn’t make it right, or less murder but there you go.
Heh, I think people in this thread should watch the two seasons of Whale Wars that have been on already to see the escalation of this.
There have been MANY MANY collisions to date.
The Sea Shepherds continually put themselves in positions to cause collisions and the Japanese Whalers escalate it to actual violence. Anywhere from throwing metal bolts at people, to using the LRAD on the helicopter. They stop short of lethal tactics, but they don’t seem to mind the idea that they actually hurt someone.
I bet the Whalers are celebrating that they dealt a blow worth over $ 1m to the Sea Shepherds who do not have the cash to absorb it.
Whack-a-mole The way I see it, it was the rifter pilot’s fault, he should’ve been watching his transversal.
“The anti-whalers are going in to low sec to pew pew with the whalers (guess they didn’t read the patch notes where bumping mechanics were changed so ramming your inty into an Orca [see what I did there] doesn’t turn out as well as it once did).”
I recall seeing a video looong ago when they were just starting to use Butyric Acid against the whalers. They pelted the whaler with that stuff but their ship was a bit too slow to keep up and the whaler pulled ahead. The Sea Shepherd ship was something like a mile behind the whaler and the crew was laughing at how bad the stink was…remember they were a mile away (albeit following in the stink wake left by the other ship but still). :eek:
Imagine someone dropping a single drop of ink on every page you print at work (or do the conversion for your actual line of work). Nothing scary about a drop of ink, right? Until you lose your job because you never finish anything.
They’re certainly exploiting a loophole in the agreement and violating it in spirit, but they aren’t actually doing anything illegal (to the extent the word has any meaning here).
IIRC from the show, they’re trying to get the butyric acid onto the whale being processed, since it will ruin the whale meat. Not so much to piss off the crew, though that’s a side benefit as well. Of course, they’re just as incompetent as that as anything else - rather than set up some kind of sling or slingshot, they just throw the bottles.
