South Africa - before
South Africa - after
Faeroe Islands - quay full of pilot whales
Faeroe Islands - local people and pilot whalesUPDATE Sunday July 25, 2010:
This Post has been commented on below and NAUTICAL LOG has replied to each one. We shall continue to do so as necessary, while still considering SSCS to be a pirate group that has a strategy of maritime thuggery. Judging from the recent "Whale Wars" series they are also grossly incompetent seafarers and portray themselves as being nautically impaired.
However when they do something that is positive in conservation then we shall report that also and in a positive way. Most certainly it is a rare enough event. That is fair and balanced posting which we want NAUTICAL LOG to be as a maritime affairs blog. It is therefore perhaps worthy of respect by you the reader rather than being another ranting forum of one-sided views. The Internet abounds with those already.
ORIGINAL POST July 21, 2010:
The NAUTICAL LOG Press Release folder brought two whale stories today from different ends of our world. The first was from South Africa in which a sailing yacht was possibly attacked by a breaching whale. The South African maritime authorities are investigating to find out if the whale had been harassed in any way prior to breaching and crashing down on the yacht. As one can see the attack was quite successful and fortunately the couple on board were not injured.
The second story is no less serious and in fact it is extremely disturbing so much so that NAUTICAL LOG is not publishing all the pictures of the event that are included with the report. The Sea Shepherds and NAUTICAL LOG are rarely in any form of agreement as to their activities. In this case however we praise Mr. Peter Hammarstedt, whom you may know is a crewmember of both the MS Steve Irwin and the MS Bob Barker both Netherlands Flag State pirate vessels, for his courage in photographing the slaughter. From the Faeroe Islands comes his report with photographs of a barbaric viking slaughter of a pod of 236 pilot whales. This slaughter was completely indiscriminate and the entire pod of bulls, females, pregnant females and juveniles were slaughtered. This makes no sense to a former fisherman because one is killing the future, not that these people could be called 'fishermen' in this case. Go to the website www.seasheperd.org/ to read the full report and view the photos which be warned are very graphic. Mr. Hammarstedt, who is Swedish, was 'cleaned-up' from his "Whale Wars" days but was still recognized, he transmitted the photos and after police interrogation had to immediately leave the Faeroe Islands. Both the Faeroe Islands Administration and the Kingdom of Denmark should be deeply ashamed of this barbaric behaviour by their nationals.
Denmark is a member of the European Union and ignores the fact that pilot whales are protected under European Union Law. Under the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats pilot whales are classified as "Strictly Protected". In 1973 when Denmark joined the then European Community, now the European Union, the Faeroe Islands declined to join with them as a result today it is not a European Union member. Denmark has failed miserably to abide by its obligations as a signatory of the Convention to deal with this pilot whale slaughter known as the 'grind' in the Faeroe Islands.
Good Watch.
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