Japan denied accusations that it used weapons against activists from Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on inflatable boats near Antarctica.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said two crew members were injured when Japanese whalers used a water cannon, concussion grenades, acoustic weapons and threw brass and lead balls at them.

“If our crew can hit them, then they would be better off quitting the research vessel and joining a professional baseball team,” said an assistant director of the Far Seas Fisheries Division at Japan’s fisheries ministry.

The Japanese fleet used hoses on two Sea Shepherd boats after sending warnings because the Sea Shepherd crew members threw bottles containing dyes and strong-smelling liquid at its boats.

Japan hopes to hunt about 900 whales.

Sea Shepherd has used confrontational tactics including collisions which are widely criticized by pro-whaling groups and fellow environmentalists.

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Japan and the United States are hanging out together in back rooms working on a proposal to allow Japan to engage in “coastal whaling” off its (Japan’s) own shores. The catch is Japan will scale back on the country’s controversial “research whaling” in Antarctic waters.International Whaling Commission Chairman will ” issue a public proposal on Feb. 2 that the commission members will openly debate a month later,” said the Washington Post.

Commercial whaling was banned by the IWC in 1986.  Since that time, whaling nations like Japan and anti-whaling countries like the United States and Britain have been at each others’ throats.

IWC allows Japan to kill the whales for scientific purposes. Japan has a culture of consuming whale meat. But Japan argues that its research activities are legal, in compliance with IWC.

There is a very fat whale chance of the new proposal getting through. For one, if Japan is permitted to whale off its coast, the IWC will not be needed any more, and nobody wants to lost their job..

Japan says it intends to withdraw from the IWC or create a new body unless commercial whaling is somehow allowed again.

I am not very smart. I freely admit that and sometimes readers remind me of it. But, I do believe there are not many whales in Mexico City. I think Mexico City is landlocked. This causes me to wonder, “What in the world are Greenpeace protestors doing chaining themselves to the Japanese embassy in Mexico City to protest whale hunting?”

I get the idea that people are opposed to the Japanese exploiting whales under pretenses of research. But, young folk in Mexico City protesting Japanese activities in the Antarctic? I don’t get that. And Greenpeace wonders why some (many?) people don’t take them seriously.

Advice to Greenpeacers – find an issue closer to home that folks nearby can really relate to. Maybe then, somebody will take your cause seriously.

Source: BreitBart

A naked Argentinian Playboy model, Vanessa Carbone, has got my attention. She was found in the buff, in her birthday suit protesting outside the Japanese Embassy in Chile about whale hunting by the Japanese.

Her placard says – “let them live.” I’d like to say something, too, about what I’d like her to let do with … never mind. Vanessa also wants the Argentinian government to set whale protection zones in its territorial waters.

I may be wrong, but I am betting that the Japanese embassy officials are now busily on the phone to all the whale fishermen in Japan saying “Go! Go! Fish, Catch whales! Don’t worry about the protesters. We’ve got that covered.” Or in this case, uncovered.

Dead serious here – Does Vanessa really really think that by stripping down, she can make a difference? She did get my attention, but I’ll be darn if I can remember why. – via Xinhuanet

Though GreenPacks may not have gotten everything right with the Faroe Whale Cull tradition, it’s not a stretch to say that the Japanese are headed out on their annual slaughter of whales. This morning, a Japanese whaling ship left for the Antarctic Ocean to do its ‘research.’

The vessel, Nissin Maru, sailed under the protection of the Japanese Coast Guard … protected from the environmental group Greenpeace. Japan is permitted to catch 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales.

Different than usual, this year there was not a departure ceremony. Japan kills about 1,200 whales annually under a scientific program that studies the feeding habits and distribution of mammals in the seas of Antarctica.

Greenpeace’s Sea Shepherd says it plans to follow up on its attack of a Japanese ship last year when it dumped a foul-smelling acid on the whaling boat and collided twice with another boat.

That’ll show them, Greenpeace. The more obnoxious you can be the more headway you will make…NOT!

The Aussies are putting more pressure on the Japanese and Japan’s whaling exploits. Japan is permitted to kill 850 minke and 50 fin whales each year to prove that whale populations can recover. I am sure there is some logic there somewhere – we can kill to prove that they can survive. And the mean from the whales is sold in Japan as a “research byproduct.”

“Yup, eating this doesn’t kill me. And if it did, it’d be a good test to see if humans could keep the population growing.”

The Aussies will promote, “the government’s objective of ending Japan’s so-called scientific whaling and improving the conservation of whales globally.” Last year the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has sent is vessel, Steve Irwin, to disrupt the Japanese.

“We intend to once again intervene against illegal Japanese whaling, and once again we intend to save the lives of as many whales as we can with the resources available to us,” the Sea Shepherd Prez said Friday.

“We have been the cause of the Japanese whaling fleet losing profits for three years in a row,” he said in a statement. “We intend to make it a fourth year of red ink for the whalers’ books.”

I wonder if the whales know what the Steve Irwin is doing. I wonder what Steve Irwin would think.

Original image by gwaar