About damn time if you ask me. But he is not being placed on a “red list” meaning they will come after him. I guess they are just monitoring him at this point.
TOKYO (AFP) – Interpol this week placed the head of US-based anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd on an international wanted list at Japan’s request, authorities in Tokyo said Friday.
The Japan Coastguard was informed by Interpol Thursday about the listing of Canadian Paul Watson, 59, for allegedly conspiring to harass whaling ships in Antarctic clashes in February, a coastguard spokeswoman said.
The coastguard filed the request with the French-based police service in April as part of Japan’s long-running battle with militant environmentalists from Watson’s Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Kyodo News said Japan had asked Interpol to issue a so-called blue notice, asking national police forces to provide information on Watson’s whereabouts and activities, but not a red notice requesting his arrest.
Japan hunts whales under a loophole to an international moratorium that allows the killing of the sea mammals for scientific research, but it does not hide the fact that the meat is later sold in shops and restaurants.
Sea Shepherd has long sought to obstruct Japan’s whalers and this year claimed its most successful season yet by preventing the harpoon ships from killing hundreds of the ocean giants.
Japanese authorities say the activists inflicted chemical burns on whaling crews by throwing bottles of butyric acid, which the Sea Shepherd group describes as rancid-butter stink bombs.
Sea Shepherd’s futuristic powerboat the Ady Gil, carrying six crew, sank after it was sliced in two in a collision with the whaling fleet’s security ship in January.
The boat’s captain Peter Bethune later boarded a whaling ship and was detained. He is now on trial in Tokyo for trespass, causing injury and other charges. Prosecutors have demanded two years in prison for the New Zealander.
The court is due to deliver its verdict on July 7.
Like INTERPOL has nothing better to do than keep tabs on this guy. Japan using INTERPOL to help keep whale meat flowing into their country is bullcrap. While I agree the sea shepards are a bunch of idiots, they seem to be the only people calling out Japan on their “research”. The only thing they are researching is how much whale meat can they drag out of the sea without the rest of the world getting pissed off.
there are plenty of people calling out Japan on their research. It’s the Sea Shepherds that think piracy and extremism is the way to fix it, and therefor gets the most attention amongst the uninformed. It most definitely is not the best way. There are plenty of organizations that do much more for the anti-whaling movement than the Sea Shepherds do. They just get all the coverage.
I am just very happy that there “appears” to be some action taken against the SS and this Watson guy.
The Sea Shepherds are nothing more than Environmental Terrorists right alongside ELF and ALF. And no I don’t mean the 1980’s Sitcom charecter who ate cats either.
I would like to see Watson and his minions in an international court facing charges for Piracy.
Honestly, I am surprised that the Japanese have not paid a group of PMCs with advanced training in maritime operations to ‘take out’ the Sea Shepard fleet.
I used to think Paul was the biggest idiot but after watching this seasons episodes with the bob barker and the andygil :rolleyes: I came to realize that Paul is the smartest of the bunch of tree huggin pot smocking drunk,dumbasses the capitian of the andygil being the biggest jack ass cross between annoying steve erwin that has watched XXX the movie to many times WTF :rolleyes:
I do not condone what the sea shepherds are doing, but if they are able to save one whale from becoming japanese ‘research’ meat, then he is still somewhat effective.
If Watson has to go on trial for piracy, then I guess the Japanese should face much more severe International punishment for decimating the whale population, flaunting their ‘research’ exemption, while full-well aware that the whole world knows it is not for research purposes.
The international ban on whaling should be a total ban, and a loop-hole, the size of a japanese whaling fleet, is sugar coating what they are doing.
At least Watson has the balls to stand up to the Japanese and show the rest of the world what is really happening.
I eat smart animals all the time, Id be willing to bet a pig is smarter than any whale, but I don’t see people crying over their slab of bacon next to the eggs.
This has been hashed over on M4C a bunch of times.
You are welcome to your (misinformed) opinion, but please do your research. The Japanese provide valuable research on whales and even the anti people at the international org level have acknowledged such. The number of whales taken pale compared to the size of the whale populations and most of the whales taken are in no way endangered. At least they use the meat after they gather their research data (which is things like what the whales are eating, DNA, size and age measurements, etc).
You can search on M4C on whaling and read the previous threads.
I wish bacon and ham wasn’t do damn tasty. Because pigs are an intelligent animal. All I can say is it’s a good thing whales don’t taste as good as bacon.
Valuable research? The only ones saying the research is valuable is Japan. If you do not see the flaw in the scientific method in their research you are blind. The research they do is always found to be insufficient, which mean they always need to do more. There are also non-lethal research methods they can use but they choose not use them. They supposedly do population surveys, but never publish them and they use surveys from like 1985 to make their quotas.
Do you know who gives Japan the permits and quotas for their whale research? JAPAN does. Even when the IWC told Japan not to take any whales for research they issued themselves permits anyway. Japan has also been caught bribing, funding, and giving incentives to IWC members so they will support whaling.
Do you honestly believe that the research will ever show anything other than finding that support whaling. Japan has already over fished their own water to the point that their catches decline every year. Their “scientific research” shows that whales are the cause of it because they eat too much.
You are welcome to believe what you want to believe. In the previous whale threads I believe I posted links that show you are mistaken. That even some anti whaling commission bigwhig acknowledged that the Japanese collected valuable information.
And do you know why the Japanese issue themselves permits? Because they are supposed to. That is how the international whaling agreements work.
And do you know why the Japanese issue themselves permits? Because they are supposed to. That is how the international whaling agreements work.
They must first submit the permit for review to the IWC. Every time the IWC has told Japan not to issue the permit they did it anyway. They did not start doing research until whaling was banned, simply to use that loophole.
Strange. They self issue permits but then have to have it reviewed? Why not just make the IWC issue permits? Something does not make sense.
The fact is that the Japanese are working within the parameters set. Their research is being used to show that the blanket ban is not scientific (which it is not) and that sustainable whaling is possible. But the other countries in the IWC are driven by emotion and politics and not by science. There was no need to do research before the ban – that was their incentive to start so that they could show that sustainable whaling is possible.
Japan should just withdraw from the IWC. Then it would not be “subject” to the IWC and could do what it wanted. I believe Norway did just that IIRC. Japan was going to but the US basically blackmailed them with fishing rights in US waters and then hosed them anyway and did not live up the agreement they made with the Japanese…
I am going to have to find some whale next time I am in Japan and see how it tastes.
