Greenpeace Ship Disrupts Japanese Whaling Fleet

Back in November, a small fleet of Japanese ships set out to hunt whales for "research purposes". Clearly a front for commercial whaling, which is illegal yet ignored, the whales that are captured and studied are then sold into the market and ultimately end up on many Japanese dinner tables. The Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza has been hunting for the Japanese flee for months now. Greenpeace's goal is to non-violently disrupt and stop the fleets whaling activities. Over the weekend Greenpeace announced that the whaling fleet had "scattered and ran". The most important ship of the whaling fleet, the Nisshin Maru was forced to flee rendering the entire operation impotent. The Nisshin Maru is the factory ship on which captured whales are processed in order to be brought back to Japan.

Japanese whaling ship on the run.

According to the great Greenpeace member blog, Undercurrents, the Japanese fleet was spotted in the International Whale Sanctuary where it was chased and forced to flee by Greenpeace.

Here is a nice account of the hunt from a member of the Greenpeace crew,

"Then came a futile attempt at the trickery they are so infamous for. The fleet scattered in all directions at full speed, but in doing so they allowed us to locate our target, the Nissa Maru (a.k.a. mother ship, factory ship, death star.) Over the past eight expeditions the Capt. had determined each ships range and speed capabilities. So, when the ships fled the scene he was able to deduce by their speed which vessel was which. We set a course to intercept the factory ship and put the petal to the metal. In an attempt to create a diversion one of the hunting ships turned and headed straight at us. This is the same tactic they used two months ago as they were leaving Japan. They thought we would take the bait and follow them while the Nissa Maru escaped. Wrong! In moments we were passing port to port with the decoy. This was the sweetest moment for me of the entire trip thus far. I stood on the bridge wing and with the biggest smile you could imagine I casually waved to the whalers, thinking to myself, "GOTCHA SUCKERS, GAME ON!!!""

Check out the full account right here.