New images of whale slaughter
February 7, 2008 by Rachel Siewert
The Australian Greens are calling on the Federal Government to make photographic and video evidence collected during the Oceanic Viking operation available to HSI.
If the government now has the evidence needed to mount a legal case against Japanese whaling, then there is a moral imperative for them to release it to support the current court case being fought on our behalf by HSI.
I don’t see how the Minister for Home Services can claim success for the operation, when not one whale has been saved through their operations to date. So far, the only ones who have had any success in preventing whales from being killed in the Australian Antarctic whale sanctuary have been the non-government organisations.
It is hypocritical for the home services Minister to call the Oceanic Viking’s mission a success, if they are not taking the opportunity to swiftly bring the evidence to bear to halt the whale slaughter.
The Government should commence their legal action now and assist HSI wherever possible.
The Japanese whaling fleet are still in our Antarctic waters and whales are still dying painfully and unnecessarily.
These ae some of the most horrible pictures that i have ever seen . i cant beleive that they can so that let alone sleep at night . i am only thirteen but i was wondering if i could come out and help you stop all of this horrible slaughter !!!! thesepeople are murders !! we need to defend the defenceless!!
It’s good to see young people so passionate. Katharine, if you want to really make a difference against whaling, read about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to see how.
This is also a good opportunity to thank The Greens for their continuing support of Sea Shep - especially you Rachel, about whom I heard something wonderful very recently. It’s much appreciated.
These images are just as disturbing as the horror that goes on in factory farms (including Australian farms) every day.
Veal calves raised in tiny crates and deliberately made anemic, male pigs castrated without anaesthetic, nursing pigs forced to feed their babies through metal bars…
At least whales get to live normal lives before their slaughter. The same cannot be said for factory farmed animals.
The following are excerpts from a doorstop interview in Maroubra, on the 7th of Feb, between Peter Garrett (Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts), Bob Debus (Minister for Home Affairs) and the press:
How more ‘real’ does the Government need whaling to be? Are they saying that the ‘circumstances’ they disagree with are the realistic slaughter of innocent animals? Both the coalition and the ALP are happy to ignore this problem, but when the photographs are waved in his face, suddenly the Minister is willing to look at the ‘reality’ of the situation.
This comment singlehandedly undermines the decades of work undertaken by the Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace. The Minister is effectively saying the situation wasn’t real until they took their own photographs. If the issue was one of international clout, all it would have taken was official backing and support of groups like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd to lend them that credibility.
The whole Rudd government evidence gathering expedition is just more spin from the spinmeister. What do you need more evidence for?
Its common knowledge.
You have an open confession.
The Japanese aren’t trying to hide their whaling, freely admit to their hunting but dispute the validity of an Australian whale sanctuary. No one is going to catch them unawares with a “smoking gun”.
Your mob backed Rudd in the last election and you can see what you’ve got so far, environmentally,….symbolism or SFA.
By the way Rachel, what news on the Traveston Crossing Dam? What is the cunning drum from your political allies, the ALP and more particularly from the now eternally compromised Garrett? Haven’t seen you since before the election at the Kandanga Hall.
Many of us up here made formal submissions to the Coordinator General re the EIS.
Did the Greens make one? If so can we access it?
Cheers,
Dave Ross,
Amamoor.
Krill and small crustaceans are of greater concern. Minkes are not endangered. Krill is in decline due to over-fishing and rising ocean temperatures.
No more krill = no more whales.
I would prefer the whaling to stop but the fact is that it will not make the minkes threatened or endangered.
Humans in 2050, with no seafood on their plate whatsoever, will wonder why focussed so strongly on this one emotive, overblown issue.
yeah just while i am here i would love to say a big thanks to all of the sea shepards crew and followers who are out there trying to make a difference putting there lives in peril to try to save the poor defenceless whales . . Donn i know what you mean recently i did a school project on what really goes on inside fur farms . i was balling my eyes out when i saw little kittens and puppies in cages being pushed off the top of buses to shatter there bones , and kittens being put in sacks and tossed in boiling hot water it was disguisting but what really made my blood boil was when they just lined all the poor animals up and skinned them alive they keept the fur and just chucked the barely alive animals in a pile it was like they were niothing but these animals arent nothing . and then the factory farming well that is just grosss those poor animals not even having the space to stand up or do anything and then when they get slaughtered there throas are slit and they just hang there with hooks in there feet to bleed to death . i just dont understand we were not on this planet first so why do we get to be the ones who rule it and slaughter all of our creatures we should honour them instead of making fur coats or chops . but whale slaughter is horrible …..
it is up to us to protect the defenceless
Tim @ 4
Can we please not attack people who are coming around to our way of thinking?
I’ve seen this kind of thing a few times making me fear its not part of Green culture.
We’ll get further commending them on what they get right and encouraging them to do more.
If you only know to attack then you become irrelevant, because they take it as a given and it loses it power to influence. It is by altering your own words and tone in response to their behaviour that you gain the power to influence.
An ingrained desire to castigate reveals more about the castigator than the issue.
I’m with you on this Donn. Humans eat meat (and fish, poultry, etc), this necessitates killing. Almost everyone agrees that the killing should be as swift and painless as possible. The other aim should be for animals to have the most natural quality of life before being harvested for food, unconstrained by cages and fences, and free to socialise and to breed. Hunting animals in the wild achieves this.
I am not a fan of whaling (due to the suffering), but I regard the discarded bycatch of fishing as being a far greater tragedy.
I’d recommend Tim read Crossing the Chasm by Geoff Moore. It is concerned with getting mainstream adoption of cutting edge ideas. It recognises that there is a chasm that separates the early adopters of ideas from the broad majority.
Essentially the broad majority strongly believe that early adopters are fundamentally different from them and so the support of an idea by an early adopter does not represent an endorsement to the majority, in fact it is a kind of disendorsement.
The challenge for someone who wants to achieve broad adoption of an idea that is already enthusiastically received by the early adopters is to:
a) NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use an early adopter as an example to the majority as to the merits of an idea. Only use one of majority who has come on board. The majority will see this person as like them and this will be an endorsement.
b) find and use a radically different set of (and style of) messages to that enthusiastically used by the early adopters.
This is precisely the phenomenon that is occuring in the article that Tim rages against. We would be better to understand the phenomenon of “crossing the chasm” that to rage against an inevitability of human nature.
It would easy to adopt an attitude that “we are right but misunderstood” and actually never make a sophisticated attempt to get mainstream adoption. This is the lazy option, as it lends itself to a very seductive “I am superior” form of self flattery, but it neatly avoids any possibility of being responsible for the changes that would occur if we really tried. A nice bit of ego stroking with zero accountability.
It seems to me however that all our futures seriously depend on mainstream adoption of the idea we need a strong climate change response.
This compells us to make highly intelligent and responsible choices. This means we must make a serious attempt to understand the well studied phenomena of achieving mainstream adoption of disruptive ideas.
So Green’s what it to be:
a) self indulgent responsibility avoidance, or
b) a sophisticated study of facilitating mainstream adoption of this disruptive idea of the need for climate change response?
Why not defend everyones feelings,then ask ourselves and then others the same questions about their feelings!?
It maybe, entirely possible that the whaling boat staff and a majority of whale eating Japanese,understand and even can empathise with all the feelings expressed here in word form.
And what is wrong with castigation,if you know where it abides deeply within self.
The treatment of animals is bad,very bad, but if you are only thirteen,there is ample scope to also care about animals and not be driven to distraction by all this,or to be passionate beyond ones ability to be precisely effective.
Being educated isnt such a wonderful thing sometimes,and the horror movies of reality still require adult supervision so people can sleep at night,enjoy all the seasons of the year and grow to adult hood with sometimes similar genetics as the most differentiated to human species.
This slaughter and others before today,were actually involved in understanding functionality aspects of a biological entity,which could transform itself to new understandings of applying what has been learnt to human technologies including vessels.
It is likely Australians and Japanese would like to travel and see like whales in various depths,create new art forms by copying some of these behaviours.
There seems a reluctance to comprehend,that, the Japanese maybe in a bind as to how to move forward on this,and I saw,a premise to work upon or from is to accept that new ideas of using these vessels needs to be suggested.
Where the skills are possibly used in a different manner,and attempts at creating eloquent English on matters like this,becomes a necessity to show not only the range of options of perception against whaling,but that which is pro-humanity and as keepers and protectors of the planets wildlife.
It is easy to say,but harder to comprehend that, the Japanese cannot be considered foolish,but what is really going on here,I think is in part corrupting the matters they deem as culture.
They may not want to accept that,indeed, they may thing I am wrong.But they can understand,yet they maybe unwilling to agree in a manner that is a replicate of any words and feelings expressed in places like this.
Is legality,really the answer,or are varied means of finding understandings and agreement more timely?.
I cannot stop activists,I cannot stop the Japanese.
I doubt I will be pleased by government action alone,yet there is something missing in both countries attitudes.
I hate spelling mistakes saw should read say,I am cutting myself down to size by such errors
lets just focus on stopping al of this slaughter
“The other aim should be for animals to have the most natural quality of life before being harvested for food, unconstrained by cages and fences, and free to socialise and to breed. Hunting animals in the wild achieves this.”
No, veganism (as practiced aboard all Sea Shepherd vessels) achieves this.
Leave eating animals to carnivores - people don’t need to. Let’s also remember that the livestock industry accounts for 18% of global warming, which should make promoting veganism a top priority for all green activists.
Should the government use their new ‘evidence’ in an international court, and determine that Japan has acted illegally - then what? Who is going to arrest the whalers? Is Australia seriously going to arrest Japanese whalers and impound or scuttle their ships? Not while thousands of Australian jobs depend on Japanese companies like Toyota and Mitsubishi.
This is a problem that government cannot solve. Send your money to Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace.
You know guys what ?
We have got to ask ourselves who we are as the mankind.