Bowhead whales - No connection to the incident.

Foreign Minister McCully has raised the alarm to anti-whaling protesters that ships of Japanese origin will be armed to the teeth, and cautions activists to keep an eye out.

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Whale wars

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS), which is known round the globe as the crew from Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars” has gone by many titles, pirates, environmentalists and even eco-terrorists. However, no matter what you may call them, they are now calling one of their own “dishonest” and “morally bankrupt”, and are going as far as to say that they have been involved in conspiracies and cover-ups.

The former captain of Sea Shepherd, Pete Bethune, who hails from New Zealand, has struck out against the motley, yet sometimes dangerous, group of people who consist of weekend warriors, college activists, and even professionals on vacation. They are well known for causing a ruckus for Japanese whalers, in an attempt to save the whales. However, he seems to be targeting Captain Paul Watson, and accuses him of pulling the wool over the public’s eyes on more than one occasion, exaggerate facts and exploits, among other things.

He even went so far as to write an in depth expose on his Facebook page, and then made himself available for a lengthy piece on the site ecorazzi.com. Bethune even goes as far to offer an “online letter of resignation.”

“I am asking that from now on, SSCS determine to act in an honest way with its volunteers, supporters and media,” Bethune writes as a comment on Facebook. “SSCS does not need to lie. Saving whales, dolphins, tuna and sharks are noble causes, and the public will embrace these as worthwhile. The story does not need to be manipulated and changed in order to get public support.”

While this is certainly an interesting turn of events, only time will tell what, if anything, will come of these accusations.

Faroe Islands

On the 19th of July, some 236 pilot whales met a rather ruthless demise in the town of Klaksvik, located in the Danish Faeroe Islands. Thanks to the excellent work of an undercover operative of Sea Shepherd, who was amongst the locals to document “the grind”, the whole thing was caught on tape! The grind is a very inhumane practice of whaling which involves herding the pods of cetaceans in coves, before stabbing them in the back with a knife!

Peter Hammarstedt, a Sea Shepherd undercover operative who also happens to be the First Mate of Sea Shepherd’s vessel the Bob Barker, had been deeply undercover with these barbaric islanders for seven days when he heard the news of a grind taking place in Klaksvik over the radio. He jumped into his car and raced off to the scene. Unfortunately, he was badly outnumbered, and wasn’t in any way able to stop the massacre, so he caught the whole thing on video instead.

“Pilot whales are known to travel in pods of 200-300 members. Two hundred and thirty-six pilot whales were slaughtered last night in Klaksvik: bulls, pregnant and lactating females, juveniles, and unborn babies still attached to their mothers by the umbilical chord. An entire pod that once swam freely through the North Atlantic has been exterminated in a single blood bath,” explained Hammarstedt.

Pilot whales - Picture by: Clark Anderson

The local government is claiming that the deaths of these whales are over quickly and painless, however the footage Hammarstedt captured begs to differ.

“One whale had five to six brutal chops to her head,” Hammarstedt began, “The islanders basically used her as a chopping board. Her death would have been slow and extremely painful. Some whales are hacked repeatedly for up to four minutes before they finally die.”

It was also painfully apparent that “the grind” is indiscriminate as well as gruesome.

“Babies had been cut out of their mother’s dead bodies and left to rot on the docks,” reported Hammarstedt, who got quite a few shots of dead babies and even fetuses. “Pilot whale groups are strongly matriarchal; I can’t imagine the fear and panic that these mothers must have felt as their families were wiped out in front of them.”

The Faroese pilot what grind is very similar to the yearly Taiji dolphin slaughter perpetrated in Japan. The slaughter of dolphins is very well documented in the bone chilling documentary, “The Cove”. The thing that sets apart the two activities is that there are more than 18 different coves in the Faeroes where the grind can happen, as opposed to the single cove in Taiji. This makes it almost impossible to find out where the killings will take place, or to get there in time to help prevent this heinous act.

Now that this barbaric act has been brought to light, and into the public eye, one can only hope that there will be steps taken to help avoid this kind of thing in the future.

Anyone who wants to know more or see pictures from the slaughter can visit http://www.seashepherd.org/