Huge. Bigger than a whale.

Apparently Japan's whaling regime in the Southern Ocean has been deemed by the International Court of Justice to be unscientific.
Now who would have thunk it?

I've had plenty of arguments with Old Salt about modern day whaling in the Antarctic, but my final answer came when he tried to explain that it was a 'cultural thing'.
"What. With diesel powered gunboats? Thousands of nautical miles from their traditional hunting grounds?"

It's rare for 'cultural things' to dress up in a sciencie frock to justify a commercial industry, but this particular frock has been doing the hokey pokey in the Australian Whale Sanctuary and getting away with it for ages*. So it was with a glad heart that I learned the ICJ has ruled that Japan's whaling program over the last decade or so has been carried out for commercial purposes. Not scientific ones. Therefore, the court has ruled, no future permits will be issued for the Japanese to hunt whales in the Southern Ocean. There is to be no appeal.

Here's the news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-31/ijc-japan-whaling-southern-ocean-scientific-research/5357416

*Did you see what I did there? The shittiest sentence ever, dressed up in a frock with fractals. And it has whales in it.

Divine Wind

Last night at the old whaling station, the mayor of Albany helped launch Sea Shepherd's 2011 Antarctic campaign Divine Wind (aka 'God Wind', or 'Kamikaze', interestingly).

A Warm Welcome From the Albany Port Authority

On the Salamanca docks in Hobart we wondered at the the Antarctic expeditioner named after a nineteenth century French sojourner. I love reading the journals of d'Urville and his officers in King George Sound. In Hobart we could nearly touch this maritime continuation of our past.

Not so in Albany. Tonight the SS Steve Irwin steamed in. Below is the only look you will get at this ship while they are in town, unless you have a boat. And then, no closer than eighty metres, please.

The security guard is a friendly from a firm contracted by the the Albany Port Authority to make sure no rabble get close to the port. "I work for/ for the APA," he told me, careful to distance himself with an extra 'for'. He might have been a cheerful employee but he is also an old Albany boy who used to fish off the wharf just like me, and he remembers all the graffiti that the seamen left, huge painted signs of national flags on the concrete back in the day when we had access.

He also remembers the whaling days because his uncles and his father worked the chasers.

He was good at his job and pleasantly refused to open the gates. He pointed the way for our best photo opportunity out by the tug boat harbour. I knew a way I could get to the port via my old fish factory haunt but tonight it involved a barbed wire fence that resembled something I used to build to keep foxes out of my chook pen. Dammit, no carpet, no key to the gates ...

"The eclipse is s'posed to be tonight but I didn't see it," he said. Well he should know. He'd been standing outside all night, protecting the port from terrorists, drug dealers and litigants, you know, the usual sorts that hang around Albany.
 Yes. Anyway. Welcome to Albany, Sea Shepherd.

Wikileaks! ... Spy Planes! ... You Beauty!

It is so hard being an idealist in this world. I  once adored the man "who dances like a broom", (thanks Seashell) who sang songs of nuclear disarmament and treaties. Suddenly I am a groan up. The tooth fairy was extorting me for the teeth I forgot to leave in a glass of water, Santa thought I deserved puppy poo on the fireplace rug and Peter Garrett, the Environment Minister was soothing us rabble with platitudes about ending Antarctic whaling while he tried the "okay, but just put it in a little bit" line with the International Whaling Commission.

Tooth Fairy, Santa and Peter Garrett aside, (and this is a slight digression but bear with me) there is another man who manages to blunt every nasty needle taken to an idealist's balloon. (Now, how was that for a mangled metaphor? I've outdone even myself.) I met this man in a field surrounded in Karri trees, during the mid 1990's Forest Blockades. It was night time and all around me leapt other idealists of the same ilk; their bodies painted with ochre, their fire poi primed with kero in the long grass, awhoopin' and ahollerin' among the teepees and bonfires and naked babies and ladies.
A tall man in a green shirt stood beside me. "Hi, I'm Bob." He shook my hand.
"Well, of course you are Bob!" I was so blown away that Bob Brown needed to tell me his name that I completely forgot to tell him mine. Dammit.

So, this post is about Bob Brown, Wikileaks, spy planes and Peter Garrett. On New Year's Day and the next, Wikileaks released the embassy cables between Tokyo, Canberra and the ominously titled 'State' (I think that means the U.S.) discussing last year's IWC talks. Anyone who has been reading A WineDark Sea from this time last year will know I am particularly interested in last year's spy planes controversy. Japanese whalers, The Institute of Cetacean Research, hired public relations company Omeka Communications to hire Australian planes to find the whereabouts of the Sea Shepherd fleet. Some of these planes refuelled at my local airport. Once the Sea Shepherd protestors were spotted, the whalers were able to peacefully kill whales somewhere else without being chased, harrassed or having butter bombs thrown at them.

About this time last year, Bob Brown started agitating for an inquiry into the practice of the Japanese hiring Australian planes. " ... the Australian Government is doing nothing about it and is allowing Australian facilities to be used against the whale protesters."  He raised the point that if Australian ports were closed to Japanese whalers, then why are our airports open?
(www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/06/2786195.htm)

Albany airport workers reported a refuelling operation supported by "truckloads of cash." The Humane Society considered taking aviation companies who hired planes to the Japanese whalers to court. Once they had proved that the whalers were working inside the Australian Economic Exclusion Zone, it was possible that the aviation companies could be charged with aiding a criminal act.
The whole story seemed to fall to bits when the Ady Gil was rammed and sunk.

But maybe it didn't. The Wikileaks cables show that Tokyo, Canberra and the State were a bit alarmed with Bob Brown's calls for an inquiry into the spy planes. A month later at the meetings with the IWC, Garrett's take on the situation was "This is NOT good."
I'll cut and paste some relevant paragraphs of the cables below, with link on each number and reference identifications. It's interesting reading ...

Reference ID 10CANBERRA93 Created 2010/02/05

4. (C/NF) Garrett Chief of Staff David Williams told econoff

that the GOA could accept a compromise that delivers a much

Qthat the GOA could accept a compromise that delivers a much

lower level of whaling, but it has to be accompanied by

signals of commitment to address other key issues -

sustaining the commercial moratorium, keeping whaling out of

the southern sanctuary areas and Australian antarctic waters,

bringing all whaling under the control of the IWC, and

preventing future scientific whaling. Absent any signals on

these areas, Garrett and other political leaders will be

under consistent attack on a deal that only addresses

numbers, however low. Williams was careful to say that

Australia would not act precipitously and would signal its

intentions clearly. Pol-Econ Counselor and Econoff both

echoed Commissioner Medina's message (ref email) on the

importance of staying at the table to Dewar, Williams and

Watt.

CORAL TRIANGLE INITIATIVE

CANBERRA 00000093 002 OF 002

2. Garrett said

the negotiating process had largely ground to a halt, with no

"real" proposals on the table. He said legislation pending

in the Australian parliament (introduced by the Green Party

on February 4 to examine the role of "spy flights" in Japan's

planning for this year's whaling season) would strengthen

anti-whaling sentiment in Australia, making it difficult for

the government to accept the current proposals. Garrett said

the February 22 IWC Small Working Group briefings, which will

alert the NGO and global community to the state of

discussions, will be key for Australia's policy on the

negotiations.

Reference ID 09TOKYO2529  Created 2009/11/02 

¶2. (C) Yamada inquired about an investigation into the tax

status of the U.S.-based NGO Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society and repeated Japan's request for the U.S. to take

action against the organization, which he said created a very

dangerous situation on the seas. The DCM replied that the

U.S. places the highest priority on the safety of vessels and

human life at sea, and added that if any violations of U.S.

law are discovered, we will take appropriate enforcement

action. Morishita went on to say it would be easier for

Japan to make progress in the IWC negotiations if the U.S.

were to take action against the Sea Shepherd.

ROOS

Reference ID 09TOKYO2588   Created 2009/11/09

6. (C/NF) Turning to harassment of the Japanese whaling
fleet by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS),
Yamashita said the NGO's actions have kept the fleet from
reaching its quota the last few years. Yamashita said the
GOJ would come under pressure domestically if SSCS harassment
continues to keep Japanese whalers from filling their quota
after an agreement on reduced numbers is reached within the
IWC. EMIN said the USG is concerned about the safety of life
at sea and is looking at the activity of the SSCS.
ROOS

6.  ... Second, the violent protests by
the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) could limit the
GOJ's flexibility in the negotiations. He said the
Netherlands should have primary responsibly for taking action
against the SSCS, but he appreciates the USG initiative to
address the group's tax exempt status. He said action on the
SSCS would be a major element for Japan in the success of the
overall negotiations. Ms. Medina replied that she hopes to
work out differences with the EU on Greenland's proposal on
humpback whales prior to the March 2010 IWC intersessional
meeting and include the issue in the overall agreement.
Regarding the SSCS, she said she believes the USG can
demonstrate the group does not deserve tax exempt status
based on their aggressive and harmful actions.

¶7. (U) Ms. Medina cleared this cable subsequent to departing
Tokyo.ROOS

"We Need the Whales. They Don't Need Us."

This was the first time Captain Paul Watson, of Sea Shepherd infamy, visited Albany. He stood before a jolly roger lectern and behind him loomed the skeleton of a blue whale. The blue whale's bones are suspended from the purloins of a shed at Whaleworld, where they used to cut whales up and then boil them down.

Paul Watson nearly made it to Albany once before, but on a different agenda. Had he not just been kicked out of Greenpeace, the renegade, self proclaimed pirate who specialises in 'direct action' claimed that he was to lead the campaign against the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company, here, in 1977. Now Paul Watson is hoping that the Japanese will one day be as passionate defenders of whales and dolphins as the Albanians are.

Tonight's gig at Whaleworld was more than a pep talk for protecting the ocean dwelling mammals though. Impian Films have big plans for Tim Winton's book. Shallows is a story of whaling in a town called Angelus, commonly recognised as Albany, spanning from the 1830's to that day in 1977 when the bikies, the flensers, the gunners, an ex-deputy prime minister, federal police, Greenpeace and Catchalot and Co all descended on the whaling station for a bit of a barney over the whales.

Impian Films is attempting to incorporate a third age of whaling into the film; the current Japanese activities in Antarctica, the Australian Economic Exclusion Zone and the Australian Whale Sanctuary. That's where Sea Shepherd comes in. But there were other reasons for the gig tonight. Before Watson spoke, Sea Shepherd's man in Australia Geoff Hanson talked about the possibilities of starting a chapter in Albany. Whilst standing under a dead whale in a place where they used to cut them up. Delicious. I love a good irony. I can't think of a better town for a Sea Shepherd chapter.

Hanson showed a promotional movie of Sea Shepherd's campaigns that began with a testosterone sound track and showed protesters against sealing in Canada, a shark finning campaign and of course, the Antarctic whale defence, complete with Japanese water cannons. The promo concluded with a quote: "I'm not here to watch them kill whales. I'm here to stop them," by Captain Paul Watson. It hit the collective g spot and drew lots of applause. If I'm sounding wearied, it's because advertising of any sort leaves me cold and this was so slick ... it was downright blubbery with slickness.

However. There were plenty more interesting enough things said to make the evening worth writing about.
Like, once anti-sealing protesters started daubing the young seals with dye to make their pelts worthless, the Canadian government brought in the Seal Protection Act. This Act does not protect the seals. It simply keeps the public (protesters and/or documentary makers) further than half a mile from working sealers. A year in gaol acts as a deterrent.

Paul Watson got up to speak and boy, can he speak. Thank goodness Paul Watson is giving splendid orations for the Whales and not to Stop the Boats or Dig Up All Our Uranium and Flog It to the Dodgy Generals.
He speaks quickly,  full of anecdotes and one liners. He has more than a couple of ripping yarns to tell. Forty years of wandering around the world in his line of work will do that. Here's some grabs:

"In 1979, hunted a pirate whaling vessel, well it was a Norwegian vessel but it had no flag so we rammed it and sank it. Later the captain was interviewed in television and asked how he felt about his ship getting sunk. He said he'd never thought about killing whales before, just killed them. Then he saw these guys putting their life on the line to protect them. It changed him. He didn't want to kill whales anymore ..."
... a bull leaped out of the water after his cow had been killed. The gunners knew he'd do that and they shot him at point blank range. Watson, sitting in his little zodiac at the bow of the ship, met this whale's eye ...
... the Russians kill whales and use their oil for intercontinental ballistic missiles. Have a quick think about that. "We are insane," was what Watson came up with ...
... sank five Icelandic whalers in one season ...
... never been convicted of a crime, never been sued. Got kicked out of Iceland though ...

"They like to call me a pirate. the way I see it, in the 17th century everyone was making money out of pirates in the Caribbean and they were too hard to shut them down. Took a pirate, Henry Morgan, to clean the pirates up. That's what we are doing."

"Steve said I was on Interpol's most wanted list. But I'm not. Japan's put me on Interpol's Blue File. That means that every country I go to, they can't arrest me for anything but they can harass me at every point. Slow me down.... took me three months this year to get an Australian visa. They wanted me to get an all clear from the FBI but the FBI don't do that. They only give out criminal records. Last year it took me four months to get a visa, even though I don't have a criminal record. Bob Brown sticks up for me. The Greens have been helpful. Garret is not." (Bob Brown was the only person who really kicked up a stink about the Spy Planes issue last year, saying that if Australian ports were closed to Japanese whalers, then why are Australian airports open and ready for business? See my Spy Planes tag below for background.)

 ... they have a replacement for Ady Gil. They decided to call her Godzilla but then realised that the only thing scarier than Godzilla was Godzilla's lawyers ...

When I asked Watson about Japan using Antarctic whaling to prop up territorial boundaries and quotas, he said that Japan may have to give up their blue fin tuna quotas if they were not also whaling in the area. Whaling is not profitable anyway. He said that Mitsubishi are stockpiling blue fin tuna in huge freezer complexes, for when they are so rare a species that the price will be astronomical. "Humans work constantly to adapt to diminished species. Not only does this mean they move on to killing other species, it means that the endangered species becomes more valuable, the less of it is around."

I asked him if he ever did find out the identity of Taz Patrol, the anonymous crew of an old boat who got a bead on the whalers last year and messaged the coordinates to Sea Shepherd. He laughed. "No, never did."

When Watson has been criticised in the past for some of his direct action techniques, something that others would call 'direct violence', he answers, "We don't care. We don't care what people think. We are not acting for people or trying to protect them. Our clients are the whales, the seals and the sharks."

Spotter Plane, Spy Plane # 4

Alright, I've nearly finished banging on about Australians renting spy planes to Japanese whalers. There's a little side story though, about a bunch of renegade Tassie folk, that I want to tell.
While some Australian companies are happy to help out illegal whalers for 'truckloads of cash', other individuals and companies are doing amazing things to keep poking the federal government and whaling enterprises where it hurts.

Being dogged by spy planes and Japanese 'security vessels', meant that the Sea Shepherd fleet were on the back foot when it came to finding the actual whaling fleet, because their co-ordinates were being relayed constantly to the fleet.
Enter Taz Patrol.
Captain Paul Watson described them as '6 people on a small motor vessel, touring the South Pacific.' Taz Patrol found the Yushin Maru, and twittered the co-ordinates to the Sea Shepherd crew. Then they left the scene. Job done.
Even the Sea Shepherd crew seemed bamboozled as to the the identity of the Taz Patrol crew. Their twitter page lists them as coming from south of Hobart.
Here is a list of their posts: Italics are mine.

5.23 pm Dec. 29th, 2009. We are at sea heading for the edge of the EEZ. Hoping to tag on to the Shonan Maru 2 and relay her co-ordinates.

10.17 am, Dec 30th, 2009. Reached EEZ limit. Starting search for whaling security vessel.

6.13 pm, Dec 30th, 2009. Search continuing. So far no ships spotted. Should any boat wish to help we can provide details of areas already searched.

4.16 am, Dec 31st, 2009. Our last update of 2009. Our New Year resolution is simple: we will not back down. We did not come all this way to run away.

8.18 am, Dec 31st, 2009. Happy New Year to everyone except the whalers. To those scum: heads up, we're coming for ya.

1.15 pm, Dec 31st, 2009. Steve Irwin has left port. It is now urgent we locate SM2. Increased speed to cover more area. This reduces our range but time is limited.

12.34 pm, Jan 1st. conditions been difficult recently. One large wave hit side on. The old girl is handling amazingly well. We continue our search.

4.17 pm, Jan 1st. Radar contact!!! As yet unknown vessel.

6.09 pm, Jan 1st. Steve Irwin claims to be out of danger area. We wish the crew of the Steve Irwin good luck in finding the whaling fleet scum.

6.13 pm, Jan 1st. Still intend to investigate radar contact. Conditions + heading + speed of target mean a few hours before visual contact possible.

7.19 am Jan 2nd. Whaling vessel found! Nearly 300nm south Tasmania. NOT Shonan Maru 2 visual shows superstructure is one of Yushin Maru class (1, 2 or 3).

7.23 am Jan 2nd. YM 1,2, or 3 was found over twelve hours ago at 47'48" S, 146' 33" E. SM2 location unknown. It's Possible SM2 scared and called reinforcements.

7.30 am, Jan 2nd. How many vessels are searching for the SI? (Steve Irwin) Seen one harpoon vessel of Yushin Maru class. How many others up here trying to track SI?

7.32 am, Jan 2nd. Whilst Yushin Maru class harpoon is up here it isn't whaling. Well done SI for diverting ships! Is SM2 scared to face us without backup? (SSCS later said the SM2 was probably refuelling at that time.)

8.30 am, Jan 3rd. Fuel situation required us to head back to port soon after confirming contact. Over halfway back to port now running at most efficient speed.

12.24 pm. Jan 6th. Back in port. Whalers up the ante (regarding Ady Gil's ramming and sinking by Shonan Maru 2). We are thinking of ways to bring the Capt'n of SM2 to justice.

Somehow, I wouldn't put it past them! I want the T-shirt.

Spotter Plane, Spy Plane # 3

Nope, the story has not died, yet ...
The Humane Society International has warned Australian charter companies that they are willing to take legal action against them, if they have been found to supply spy planes to the Institute of Cetacean Research, or it's media company Omeka Public Relations.
"Companies that assist Japanese whaling operations in Australia's Antarctic territorial waters are assisting criminal activity that is in contempt of the federal court," said Nicola Beyon, of the H.S.I. "We suggest that any company considering their involvement in whaling activities of any kind be aware of the legal ramifications."

The operative words here are Australia's Antarctic territorial waters. The Australian Whale Sanctuary is included within the exclusive economic zone and Australia's Antarctic waters.


The Institute of Cetacean Research's own catch logs, (their catches are called 'samples' and include pregnant cows and the measurements of their foetuses) are provided by the Japanese government to the International Whaling Commission. Through these records, the H.S.I have been able to prove that the Japanese whaling fleet have caught whales within Australian territorial waters within the last few years. Here is a list of some of their stats: (sorry, put yer glasses on!).
I was wrong when I wrote that it is legal for other countries to hunt whales within the Australian Whale Sanctuary. It's quite illegal. "Within the Sanctuary, it is an offence to kill, injure or interfere with a cetacean. Severe penalties apply to anyone convicted of such offences." (www.environment.gov.au)
I haven't heard of the Japanese fleet working inside Australia's E.E.Z this year. Well, not killing whales, just ramming boats whilst blaring sirens that induce vomiting and deafness. Perhaps the Australian government has a territorial agreement with the Japanese for this year's whaling season and that is the reason for their 'relaxed and comfortable' stance, not sending out the Oceanic Viking to keep an eye on them. Like I wrote previously, it's not really about the whales.

If the whalers are found to have worked in the E.E.Z, or the Whale Sanctuary this year (as they were in 2008), or found conclusively to be running a commercial whaling program, then the Australian charter companies who hired spy planes to them, and the little regional airport fascilities like the Albany one that refuelled those planes, will have committed a criminal offence by assisting an illegal whaling operation.


Anyway, the Melbourne charter company who hired planes to Japanese whalers over the New Year was Direct Air. There's a Direct Air company in Perth too. I rang them up, hoping to unravel the Albany connection. "I've only just started working here," she told me. "No one else is around at present. I don't know anything."

AWS map: www.environment.gov.au
JARPA stats: www.hsi.org.au

Spotter Plane, Spy Plane # 2

It was reported, initially by Fairfax outlets last week, that aeroplanes were sent out from Albany and Hobart by the Institute of Cetacean Research (Japanese whalers), to spy on the Sea Shepherd's fleet. This story came out on the morning of January 6th and was swiftly eclipsed by the ramming of Sea Shepher's Ady Gil by the Japanese whaler Shonan Maru 2.
Here is the footage of the collision, as filmed by crew of the Shonan Maru 2 and here is footage filmed by Sea Shepherd crew aboard the Bob Barker.

It's pretty dramatic stuff, but unfortunately the ramming took absolute precedence over the spy planes issue in the media, and the story died. One of the few people who kept talking about the spy planes was Greens Senator Bob Brown. He noted that, seeing as Australian ports were closed to Japanese whaling activity, why are our airports and planes readily available (for 'truckloads of cash') to them?

The spy planes story was buried completely the next day when aviation writer Geoffrey Thomas speculated to the ABC that the Harry Riggs Airport in Albany could not possibly have housed planes suitable of Antarctic flights, and that such Antarctic planes would have been noticed anyway.

They were noticed actually. The editor of the Weekender, the only local newspaper to cover the spy planes story, talked to pilots who told him that the planes had come from Perth but were seen refuelling at the Albany airport. He could not find out which Perth charter company had hired the planes to the Institute for Cetacean Research but was adamant, after phoning around the local Albany charter companies, that the planes came from Perth.

The public relations company who takes care of business for the whalers, and orchestrated the hiring of planes from Perth, Hobart and Melbourne, is New Zealand's Omeka Public Relations. The director Glenn Inwood is known as Ginza Glenn to the Japanese and as ' a Maori voice for a Japanese cause' in New Zealand. Inwood rides on the back of his Maori ancestry in more ways than one; he claims it as his indigenous right to hunt whales and lists his company with other Maori interests such as maraes and fisheries. Obviously, championing the right for Japanese to continue their traditional, timeless hunting technique of sending fleets of diesel powered gunboats to Antarctica, to shoot whales with explosive-tipped harpoons, is a personal passion for Omeka P.R.

Glenn Inwood also works for Te Ohu Kaimaona, the sole voting shareholder in Aotearoa Fisheries. These guys own half of Sealords. Guess who owns the other half of Sealords? Nissui, a Japanese whaling company. One of Nissui's ships, the Nisshin Maru was accused by GreenPeace in 2006 of deliberately ramming their protest vessel, Arctic Sunrise.

Omeka Public Relations' web page was up and accessible (albeit with no links) until yesterday. The site has since been taken down.

Spotter Plane, Spy Plane

There is a 'things to do list' that's gone astray; put out crab pots (check), do paperwork, pull up milk thistles, do more paperwork, go hunting along the beach for a missing crab pot bouy. The list went astray because this morning, I heard on the radio news that someone in Albany and Hobart hired out some planes to a public relations company, Omeka Communications, in late December - and the public relations company is the client of Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research.

Just like back in the good old days, spotter planes are being used for whaling. However, the difference here is that the Japanese are not spotting whales, but those balaclava-clad sea-ferals, the Sea Shepherd fleet. Basically, these are spy planes, rented by Japanese whalers from an Albany business. For those who don't know; Albany was the site of the last working whaling station in Australia. Thirty years later, Albanians are completely enamoured with our cetacean brothers and sisters. Oh, the irony.

There is nothing illegal in this latest chapter of the saga on the high Antarctic seas. Anyone can charter a plane. The International Whale Sanctuary is only a name, because the Australians and a few other countries said so. It's not internationally recognised and not signed off. The Japanese and Norwegians can do what they like there. And the whales being hunted are not a species recognised as being endangered. My feeling about this? The legality does not matter. Hunting down these animals and then killing them slowly - very slowly, too slowly - for a product that is not essential to our own well being, is just fucking immoral, and the kind of behaviour that belongs to the days before synthetics made whaling obsolete.

At the markets on Sunday, I stopped for a coffee break with Rooster. He used to work on the whalechasers and is still a patched up member of the local bikie gang. These guys put down their drinks at the White Star one day in 1978 and rode out to the whaling station. The were all whalers in those days and their intention was to tell the rabble who'd collected there - the GreenPeace protestors, ex Prime Ministers and Catchalot and Co. - that it was about time they fucked off.
Thirty years and a bit of perspective is a great thing. "Well, we couldn't keep doin' it, could we?" He laughed. "There's something wrong with killin' an animal like that. It's like killin' dinosaurs or something. And it was all gonna end, anyway. The company was fucked, quotas cut down to nothing and market prices down in the dumps. Greenpeace did the company a favour, you know and covered themselves in glory at the same time."

Today, Bob Brown asked where the Federal Government's own surveillance vessels were. You know, the ships that were to be sent out to keep an eye on the whalers.

'"It's outrageous that the Japanese have stolen such a march on the conflict between the whaling protesters and the whale slaughterers," he said. "And the Australian Government is doing nothing about it and is allowing Australian facilities to be used against the whale protesters."

The Federal Government says it has seen the reports.'

This story interests me (and shut down my day of paperwork quite successfully) for three reasons. Firstly, the Antarctic is one of the last spaces on the planet that has not been entirely carved up by humans, nation states or real estate agents. In the conspiracy theory party that is my head, I wonder whether plying trade in waters over a century or more may deliver a kind of de facto native title over those waters. It's unlikely that the Japanese whalers are actually making a profit from their killing, considering the quotas versus operating costs. The Australian government are watching these guys very carefully, but it feels like they are still quite unsure as to what to do about it. In other words, the Australian government's dilemma is about jurisdiction, maritime boundaries and the potential of Antarctica's unplundered resources, such as oil, gold and Patagonian toothfish.* This isn't about the whales at all.

Secondly, I grew up in this town and saw men dismantling whales the size of buildings with razor sharp hockey sticks, along with the accompanying stench of death. Being into history a bit, I also have access to some of the best records on ancient and modern whaling in the world, second only to records at Nantucket and Sandalfjord. My favourite plaything is a wrecked whalechaser!

Thirdly, like most people, whales just do something to me. Seeing a whale, no, meeting a whale while out on the water, or standing on a rocky headland, helps me understand the size and diversity of this planet we live in. They are a magical presence, a physical evidence of the journeys and memories they have undertaken in their work as the record keepers of the earth.

Today, I keep having these scenes played out in my mind. A little charter flight office in Albany. Perhaps they received a request so distanced as an email or a phone call, where a mysterious company requested a charter flight over Antarctic waters. At some stage, at the hangar, did the aviators twig as to what was really going on? Maybe they knew the whole time. It's an interesting scene to dwell upon, and to wonder if the story will go any further than single sentence on the news. Not long after I heard it today, the story of the Albany spotter/spy plane was eclipsed by the sinking of a Sea Shepherd boat, by the whalers. Rough waters indeed.

In this image provided by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a whaling protestor throws a bottle of butyric acid (rotten butter) at the Japanese harpoon whaling ship Yushin Maru No. 1 in the Antarctic Ocean, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009, as the Sea Shepherd helicopter flies overhead. (AP Photo/Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Adam Lau, HO)

Above quote in green text is from the abc website,
www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/06/2786195.htm

* An example of this hypocrisy is the Navy chasing a decrepid toothfish poacher all over Antarctica for nine days, because those toothfish are 'our' fish. We don't hunt whales, therefore there is no economic advantage in sending out the Navy to watch foreign whalers in Australian waters.