Our friends aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel the Bob Barker have found the whaling fleet, and caught up to the Nisshin Maru factory ship. The Bob Barker is blocking the slipway of the factory ship, which means the Nisshin Maru won't be able to take on or process any whales. This means that despite the attacks against Sea Shepherd ships by the massive and government-funded Japanese whaling fleet in the past couple months, the unarmed Bob Barker and its tiny crew of volunteer vegans have still managed to stop this year's Antarctic whaling operations.

Four other whaling harpoon vessels are surrounding the Bob Barker, including the Shonan Maru #2, which rammed and sunk the SSCS vessel the Ady Gil. But as long as the Bob Barker is blocking the slipway of the whaling factory ship, the harpoon vessels and their arsenals won't be able to continue whaling operations.

AR photographer Jo-Anne McArthur has been documenting the Sea Shepherd Antarctic campaign this year, and many of her pics are now up at her website.

She's been taking photos from Sea Shepherd's heretofore secret ship, the Bob Barker. So you'll see a lot in these photos that you haven't been able to follow just from the press releases of the campaign.

You'll see things that happened to the Bob Barker well before its existence was made public. You'll see the crew getting the ship ready for the campaign, you'll see the ship getting surrounded by whaling ships, and you'll watch the Bob Barker crew rescuing the crew of the Ady Gil after the Shonan Maru #2 rammed the Ady.

If you're like me and some of your best friends are on those ships, these pics will seriously brighten your day.

Like Isa, we're tired of sitting on our asses tipity-typing away our concerns for Haiti, so we're holding a VEGAN BAKE SALE to support Haiti during Vegan Drinks on Thursday, January 28, 7-9 p.m. at Angels & Kings. WE NEED YOUR HELP, NY VEGANS!! I know many of you have crazy vegan baking skillz (Mattie!), and we want you to put those superpowers to work on behalf of the critters of Haiti.

We'll donate proceeds from the sale to Sodopreca, a group of veterinarians from the Dominican Republic who seem to have their shit together; they're going over specifically to help animals, and they have a real, live departure date. Lots of groups are having trouble traveling via plane; the Port-au-Prince Airport is chaos. Sodopreca, because they're in the Dominican Republic, can get there by land, so we think they're the surest thing right now.

If you can bake for the sale, e-mail me right this second! Let me know what you'd like to bake and how much of it and what you propose we charge for each one, and send a list of ingredients. If you need ideas or recipes, e-mail me for that, too. Obvs, everything should be v-e-g-a-n. Vegan bake sales are totally going to save the world, so let's get to it!!

Oh, and before we quit -- there's another NYC vegan bake sale for Haiti, and it's at Mooshoes on Sunday, January 31. Proceeds for this one will go to Doctors Without Borders. Message those folks via Facebook if you want to contribute.

Headlines flashing about the death tolls in Haiti report crazy high numbers of casualties, and those just account for human lives. If you're thinking what we're thinking, you're wondering WHAT ABOUT THE ANIMALS?? We've compiled a list of groups that are helping domestic and feral animals and wildlife post-quake. We haven't evaluated all of them but we wanted to let you know what's up, right here, right now. If you know of other groups aiding animals, or if you come across more animal-related quake news, please comment or e-mail. We'll update this post as we find out more.

Groups helping animals in Haiti

• Sodopreca (Spanish)
  This is the only Dominican animal group going to Haiti specifically to rescue animals. Want to go with? E-mail Marco fast; they leave for Haiti on Friday.
• International Fund for Animal Welfare
  It looks like they're focusing on human needs first and animals second. They say on their website, "After ... immediate human needs are met, IFAW's Emergency Response team will be ready to assist the animal victims in any way that we can. In the meantime, please keep the people and animals of Haiti in your thoughts."
• Christian Veterinary Mission
• Veterinarians Without Borders
  They haven't mentioned Haiti yet, but we hope they'll get involved!
• UPDATE: We are having a bake sale! Proceeds go to Sodopreca. It'll be at Vegan Drinks on Thursday, January 28, 7 to 9 p.m. Help us by baking and/or emptying your wallets for cupcakes!
• And so are these guys, Mooshoes, Saturday, January 31, 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Can you make it/bake it for both?

Animal-related news on Haiti

• You can find the Humane Society of the United States' statement here. HSUS says, "Humane Society International and The Humane Society of the United States are working with other animal welfare and humanitarian organizations to determine how best to assist animals and people affected by the disaster. We have offered our support in providing care to affected animals and will post updates as they become available."
• The World Society for the Protection of Animals is keeping tabs on their Animals in Disasters blog. With the IFAW, the WSPA will be working on ground-level relief for animals. You can donate at the blog.
• Best Friends Animal Society is delivering updates via Facebook.

UPDATE, 1/21:

• People seem to be using this animalsinhaiti tag to refer to animal-related quake news on Twitter.
• You can find a list of resources on animals in Haiti, not unlike the one you're reading now, here at Easy Vegan.
• International Food For Life will be providing vegan meals for people in Haiti. How cool is that?? They're setting up a "vegan food relief base camp." Wow, awesome. If you want to volunteer with them, go here. If you want to donate to them, that's here.

It's TIME. Time to get tickets for MFA's Celebrating Compassion Gala, Saturday, January 23, 7 p.m. to midnight. Tickets are $75 (c'mon, I know you spend that much on ice cream every month!) and they buy you a chance to get all fancy shmancy and accidentally totally on purpose bump butts with Dan Piraro, Peter Max, Jane Velez-Mitchell, GirlieGirl Army's Chloe Joe Davis, Discerning Brute Joshua Katcher, Nellie McKay, and a bunch of other awesome vegans and animal supporters. And of course it's another opportunity to EAT. There will be vegan hors d'oeuvres from Natural Delights and Match meats, desserts provided by Vegan Treats and SO Delicious, and booze! Also a silent auction and an awards ceremony, all to benefit MFA's efforts to help other animals.

So that's Prince George Ballroom, 15 E. 27th St., January 23 at 7 p.m. MFA has the deets. E-mail questions about volunteering your pretty face and bankrolling MFA to Matt Rice.

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.

• The Catalan parliament passed a vote to ban bullfighting by including bulls in an animal cruelty law that protects certain animals from any kind of torture. Yahoooo!
• In other animals-are-not-for-entertainment wins, a charity claims to have freed the last dancing bear in India on Friday, December 18.
• The Brooklyn Paper says Red Bamboo Brooklyn's eminent closing is a sign of dying cultural interest in vegetarianism, and notes that RB owner, Jason Wong, is no longer a vegetarian. (Did everyone know that? I didn't know that.) Wong told The Brooklyn Paper, "The concern now is more about locally grown and less of a carbon footprint. Being a carnivore doesn’t mean you don’t care." This is true. It could also mean you are ignorant. What's your excuse, Jason Wong? And where is the hard, non-incidental evidence that vegetarianism is on the decline?
• Pups can thrive on a vegetarian diet, a report published in the British Journal of Nutrition says. But you already knew that.
• This is NOT a zebra. Prepare to be depressed.
• New restaurant reviews on Peacefood Cafe, Cocoa V, Sacred Chow, and HanGawi. Leave your thoughts for posterity, people.

• Vegan Drinks is TOMORROW. Free stuff, and booze, and vegans, and what else could you want for a Thursday night?
• Teany's coming back, y'all! The teahouse/maker of delicious baked goods and light meals just began rebuilding the space, more than six months after a fire put them out of business. Pleasepleaseplease, chicken salad melt, come back!!
• Feeling generous? Or, hey, feeling like a greedy, selfish scumbag? 'Til the end of the year, your donations to Farm Sanctuary will be matched TIMES TWO by some secret and super generous donor for the rest of '09. Easy math: $1 for you = $3 for a cuddly lamb or frisky pig. So if you were planning to give nothing because you thought $20 wasn't good enough (which it totally is!), now you're giving $60, and that's, what? Food for a family of four (goats) for a week or two, right?
• OK, guys, more easy math: Buy one of Isa's cookbooks and she will donate ALL the proceeds to Out to Pasture Animal Sanctuary. Christmas shopping: done.
• Governor Paterson spoke at an NYLHV VIP reception held in his honor. Take a looksee at Ecorazzi's interview with him.
• So there's an octopus...snatching a coconut? I don't know. I mean, I've never seen an octopus run like that.
• One of us (Patrick? Maybe?) ate vegan fried ice cream at Soy and Sake. Devourable or detestable? YOU DECIDE. (I've already decided that every system in my body would shut down if I got near that thing.)
• A Ringling Brothers employee outted those elephant-abusing clowns, the Washington Post reported.
• Garden blend mock meat from Gardein appeared at Chipotle in Chelsea! Vegan mainstreaming, YES.

• Ecorazzi announced their picks for top five animal victories of 2009. Check it!
• We ate Match Meats. I wasn't there, but I think I missed out on a good thing.
• Herbivore published a new book, The Art of Herbivore, or Somebody Give the Vegan Corndog a Handclap!. It's got every design they've ever made. Oooh la la.
• Missourians for the Protection of Dogs launched a signature drive to prevent puppy mill cruelty. Missourians: sign it. Everybody else: do what you can. Woof.
• Food, Inc. is now available on Netflix. That's it. I'm getting an account. Yes, I am that behind the times.
• Red Bamboo Brooklyn will close this month. DANG. Owner Jason Wong will re-open the spot as a non-veg restaurant with some of the same veg offerings.
• Sweet & Sara brings us more delicious, fluffy treats, now in the shapes of snowmen, angels, and reindeer! Santa, baby, please add the original s'mores to my stocking.
• New restaurant reviews on 71 Irving Coffee, Cocoa V, and, love of my Midtown lunch life, Green Symphony.