New Zealand Now Supports Sea Shepherd Efforts, Kind of, Sort of, Well Maybe. After years of criticism by New Zealand for interfering with illegal whaling by Japan, the Foreign Minister of New Zealand Murray McCully, says he now applauds Sea Shepherds efforts to confiscate the illegally set gill net set by the Nigerian flagged poacher the Thunder. This is the same Foreign Minister who reprimanded Sea Shepherd for not securing permission from his government to land a helicopter on Ross Island during Sea Shepherds successful search for the missing life rafts from the Norwegian yacht Bezerk that sank in February 2011. When it was pointed out that it was a Search and Rescue mission and thus Sea Shepherd could not wait for the three month period to obtain a permit to land, McCully said that the would refrain from fining Sea Shepherd but that we were not to land without a permit again. Sea Shepherd received a commendation from New Zealand Search and Rescue despite the Ministers rebuke at the time. Another interesting connection is that during the search for the Beserk in 2011, both the Sea Shepherds Steve Irwin and the New Zealands Navy Frigate Wellington were involved with the search. The Wellington was forced to turn back because of extreme weather conditions whereas the Steve Irwin pushed through the storm and located the liferaft. Sea Shepherd also recovered a lost liferaft from the Wellington that was blown off the deck of the frigate by the storm. McCully has warned Sea Shepherd to not risk human life in the pursuit. Sea Shepherd has an unblemished record of not causing or sustaining injuries but the reality is that risking our lives is something that Sea Shepherd has done for many years in our efforts to protect life in the Ocean. It has always seemed to me that risking our lives to defend life and diversity in the oceans is more important than young people being asked to risk their lives to defend oil companies and real estate for political objectives. On the other hand Sea Shepherd supports and applauds the efforts of the New Zealand government to work to pressure Panama, Spain, and others to crack down on the owners of these ships. Hopefully they will have success pursuing these diplomatic channels. The New Zealand and Australian Navy boards armed pirate vessels off Somalia so it would seem that boarding a poaching vessel in their own waters would be less difficult. And of course this report brings in yet another academic expert to defend the government position. Meanwhile the Sam Simon is on the hunt for the three poachers with the intention of intercepting them to stop their continued plundering of the Southern Ocean Toothfish population. The Bob Barker continues to pursue the Thunder as they slowly get closer to Africa.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 09:32:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015