The Sea Shepherd fleet has been chasing the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica for about a month now, continually fighting off attacks from the harpoon vessel the Shonan Maru No. 2. Yesterday revealed quite a bit about the players on both sides of the conflict.

The Japanese harpoon ship Shonan Maru No. 2 rammed the tiny Sea Shepherd vessel Ady Gil. The attack ripped about eight feet of the Ady Gil's bow completely off the ship. The Ady Gil is sinking and will, most likely, be unsalvageable. As the Ady Gil lurched during the ramming and the crew struggled to keep from falling overboard, the Shonan Maru No. 2 fired high-powered water cannons at the teetering Sea Shepherd members while shooting their LRAD at the Ady Gil. View video of the attack here.

At first the Japanese did not acknowledge the Ady Gil's post-attack distress signal. The Nisshin Maru finally acknowledged the signal without offering assistance to the ship sinking in Antarctica.

This behavior is getting a bit lethal for even the Japanese Antarctic crew. Even when they chucked grenades at my friends and I on the Steve Irwin two years ago, they weren't quite so brazen about trying to cause fatalities. New attacks like these suggest they're more malevolent towards humans than even we thought.

Luckily, the Japanese didn't know that Sea Shepherd has secretly acquired a third ship for the fleet this year, which has now caught up with the Japanese fleet and rescued the six crew members of the sinking Ady Gil. I'm personally quite glad my friends are now safe and not sinking alone in Antarctica.

Perhaps understandably, the people of Australia are a tad annoyed that their federal government is letting the Japanese sink a ship full of Australians with impunity.

The Australian people and the Green Party of Australia have been wonderful, level-headed supporters of Sea Shepherd, and we think they have a right to be miffed about the Australian aid given to the Japanese whalers to help them attack Australians.

Update: This post at first stated that the Ady Gil wasn't moving when the Shonan Maru No. 2 rammed and dragged the Ady's bow before ripping it off. I since removed that statement because the debate of "was it moving?" became everyone's sole focus of the attack. I'm keeping that statement off since the rest of the post seems to go unread if that statement is in, even though I stand by Captain Chuck Swift. But in case people are still curious to see if the Shonan Maru No. 2 actually did swerve to hit the Ady, here's video of the ramming from the point of view of the vessel the Bob Barker.

Japan has released its 2009 cetacean research findings after killing dozens of whales for the study. Japan, which asserts that it must conduct fatal whaling for necessary scientific research, killed 59 Minke whales off its coast this year for the scientific program. And the conclusion of this year's Japanese whaling program is that whales eat krill.

Because no one in Japan's scientific community knew that or asked anyone else on earth.

It is, however, arguable whether or not this year's findings have more scientific merit than Japan's 2008 whaling research findings. In 2008, Japan announced - after stating it had to kill hundreds of whales for this research - that injecting dead whale sperm into a cow egg does not result in a half-whale-half-cow monster creature.

I flew into Portland on Friday to attend this year's National Animal Law Conference at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, OR. I visited the "Brooklyn of the West" to make my jeans fit tighter and attend conference sessions on issues relating to the criminal prosecution of animal cruelty, the link between domestic violence and animal abuse, the intersectionality between animal rights and human rights, and so on and so forth.

But, in honor of Vegan MoFo III, you want to hear about the food, right? For the first time in a very long time, I received a vegan meal on the plane. I stopped requesting them long ago, but my Continental Airlines frequent flyer profile still lists me as a scary, radical vegan. Much to my surprise, about an hour into the flight, a box containing a vegan soy patty with cheese on a whole wheat English muffin appeared on my tray table. It was surprisingly good. A partially frozen fruit cocktail, a Sara Lee "bagel", Smart Balance (the vegan kind) and a packet of Mrs. Dash, which I'm still not sure of its intended use, accompanied it. Continental gets thumbs up on the English muffin sandwich and for getting me to Portland on time.

My first stop in Portland was La Bonita for some of the tastiest black beans to pass through my digestive track. For only $6.95, I procured a large plate with two soft tacos, a heaping mound of rice, a liberal portion of beans and chunky guacamole. Good job, NE Portland.

As the movie The Cove explains, the city of Taiji, Japan, is a huge contributor in Japan's killing of over 20,000 dolphins per year for their meat. This year, however, international pressure has accomplished something amazing: Taiji has thus far suspended their dolphin hunt due to bad press.

Probably the greatest reason for the suspension is the fact that the city of Broome, Taiji's sister city in Australia, has cut ties with Taiji due to the hunt. Unfortunately, Broome is considering reestablishing ties with Taiji today. If relations are reestablished, it may unfortunately result in Taiji resuming its dolphin hunt. Please tell Broome not to reestablish ties!

Message from Save Japan Dolphins Coalition director Richard O'Barry below:

Here at SuperVegan we hold a special place in our hearts for Captain Paul Watson and the Sea Shepard Conservation Society. Not only because one of our own, SuperVegan blogger and bona fide vegan pirate Tod Emko has fought right alongside Mr. Watson, but also because while you and I may be content to sip on our agave-sweetened soy lattes while debating the nuances of vegan "cheese", these ladies and gents are in the trenches fighting the good fight.

At the Edge of the World opens today in NYC at Cinema Village and will continue until September 3rd.

Those familiar with Animal Planet's, Whale Wars will be acquainted with the premise (incidentally, the finale was the most watched show in the channel's history): a determined group of eco activists attempt to disrupt a Japanese Whaling fleet in Antarctic Waters by any means necessary!

The director will be on hand for a Q&A at tonight's (Friday) shows.

Usually, I love reading the Huffington Post. However, in the past week they posted a surprisingly scathing blog entry calling Sea Shepherd a terrorist group.

However, the blog made all its arguments based on many assumptions that many people seem to be making about conservation lately, so it seemed worth it to address the blog.

For the first part of this post, we will first address the main themes of the Huffington blog, for the benefit of most readers. Afterwards, we will have, for anyone who has the time or curiosity, a much longer section analyzing every other argument made in the Huffington blog, as it does address other arguments against conservation law enforcing.


The main themes

The central theme of the Huffington blog is mentioned time and time again, and put succinctly in its eighth paragraph:

"Of course the whalers, whatever you may think of their activities, are operating legally. It is Watson and the Sea Shepherds who are the criminals."

So, although we've addressed this partially in previous posts, let's cover it comprehensively here.

Here is a list of illegal activities that the whalers are performing on video, much of which was outlined by Paul Watson:

Today, after a long struggle, the European Union has finally voted to ban all seal products. This is a huge victory for the seals, and hopefully it will go a long way to ending the massacre of any more Canadian baby seals.

Even before it passed, it seems the threat of the ban already devastated the baby seal hunting industry. In 2006, seal pelts sold for $105, while this year they sold for $14 each.

The result being, Canada had a quota of 280,000 seals this year, but the sealers ultimately only bothered to slaughter 59,500. Longtime seal hunter and seal hunt advocate Jack Troake stated, "We just couldn't seal for those prices. The prices were too low."

Canada's government tried many things, including sending Inuit seal hunters to the European Parliament to plead Canada's case for them, before the EU finally voted in favor of the ban. Canada's great effort against the ban and the dramatic drop in seal pelt prices both indicate that the seal hunt will no longer be worth it post EU ban. Hopefully the permanent end of the hunt is now imminent.

From September to December 2008, the vegan conservation group Sea Shepherd waged a fight to protect the ecosystem and all the animals of the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. This blog recounts what happened in that time, serving for the group.

The post below recounts what Wolf Island was like, the island that we were on a mission to defend.

On Wolf Itself

Wolf is surrounded on all sides by high cliffs, and there's no dock, since no humans are allowed on the island. To get onto Wolf, you take a speedboat to the cliff edge, when the waves permit. Then you run off the front of the speedboat and cling to the cliff rocks as the boat speeds away. Then you hope there's enough footing to get up the cliff because no one else probably climbed that rock face before you. At the top, you'll be ripped to shreds by cactus, but it's worth braving all of that because you'll see things you'll never see anywhere else in the world.

The anti-poaching ship I served on in the Galapagos last year, the Sierra Negra Ranger vessel, managed to catch several illegal poaching vessels this month.

Many of the Sierra Negra's crew are former fishermen themselves, who have gained a reverence for the ecosystem they were lucky enough to be given. Last year, while I served with them, we all created a secluded Ranger base at Wolf Island. The Sierra Negra has been making the trip to Wolf Island every few weeks to resupply and relieve the crew.

As the Sierra Negra was returning from a trip to Wolf Island on April 2nd, these dedicated Rangers came across several illegal poaching vessels. Deploying several small delta vessels, the Rangers caught three of the poaching ships on April 2nd and 3rd. One tuna and eight marlins were found on the poaching vessel's longlines, and the three ships were confiscated.





The poachers themselves who were caught by the Sierra Negra talked about how worth it is for them to poach inside the Galapagos National Park. They talked about how seldom they get caught and how low the penalties are in the event they are caught.

Unfortunately, precedence says they're right about the too-small punishments, so it's important that we work to make poaching be considered a serious crime in the Galapagos. It's also more important than ever to keep working with the Rangers to help them catch as many illegal longlining vessels as possible.