Sea Shepherd is accusing Japanese whalers of intentionally ramming and sinking their high-tech carbon fiber catamaran Ady Gill (video below). However, it remains unclear if the boat is actually sinking. One of the Sea Shepherd crew appears to have suffered some broken ribs.
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 Sea Shepherd Ship "Bob Barker" A. It’s no longer a Secret, and  Female sperm whale with squid caught between her teeth (Tony Wu) Photographer Tony Wu captured some extremely rare images off the Ogasawara Islands in Japan earlier this month. It’s believed the images chronicle adult female sperm whales teaching a baby how to dive for, and eat, giant squid. The squid was caught far to deep for the photographer to snap pictures of the squid actually being caught, but Wu’s photos show the whales with squid still in their mouths at they return to the surface.  The squid was guessed to be up to 30 meters long. These images were taken in the same area where Japanese scientists used baited hooks and cameras to capture live images of giant squid a few years back. One scientist proposed this theory about the scene. “As echolocation is pivotal for sperm whales finding their prey, it is not out of the question that the females would release the dead squid at depth and let the calf echolocate and recognise it in the dark deep water, typically around 800 m deep.” And no Japanese whale boats show up to kill anything. More photos here. And from the looks of this sneak preview, it’s every bit as f’d up as you’d hope it would be.  It's not a whale, it's whale! There was some hope, especially in Australia, that the new Japanese government would oppose or il-legalize whaling in Japan. But no such luck. Japan’s new government has urged the Aussies to do what they can to prevent violent attacks on Japanese whalers by activists, especially Sea Shepherd.  Taiji Dolphin Hunt Hayden Panettiere, who hates whaling, has posted a blog entry on Social Vibe trying to set the record straight about exactly what’s going on in Taiji in the wake of international attention created by “The Cove.” It seems that the dolphin hunt in Taiji has resumed in a sort of limited capacity. On September 9, fisherman drove 50 pilot whales and 100 bottlenose dolphins into the cove. All the pilot whales were slaughtered. 30 of the dolphins were sold to marine parks, while the rest were released. Hayden wonders if the release was a one-time gesture aimed at deflecting attention, but then again, all the pilot whales were killed. She goes on to add that dolphins living in captivity will have their lifespan reduced by 30-40 years, surviving on average only about six years. Maybe, I’m being harsh. I mean, USA is the land of cows in Chick-Fil-A commercials. But anyways. In this first commercial from the Japanese Ad Council, a pupil is told by his teacher “Today, draw anything comes up in your mind.” (I neither translated nor added the closed captioning). Most of the kids draw bunnies or cats or Ultramans and shit, but this one kid just draws a big BLACK. You’ll have to watch the whole thing for yourself to see how it ends, but I suspect he’s crazy because of all the mercury in the dolphin and whale meat they feed him in school. Secondly, Boss is a brand of Japanese canned coffee. You can get it in NYC at almost any Japanese market. A while back, Super Punch blog (which is actually pretty cool and has some really cool stuff tagged whale) posted on a Boss ad that features heavy whale imagery. Still below, but you gotta go to the agency site to see the whole thing in glorious video.
A small bit of irony from Australia where the last few days have seen Premier Colin Barnett defend a natural gas installation in what appears to be whale country, while Environment Minister Peter Garrett had to manage his tempered excitement at getting to lobby the new Japanese government to stop whaling. Over 150 humpback whales were recently spotted off Western Australia near the site of a planned natural gas installation. Environmentalists argue that the site is as significant as others that were ruled out due to whale activity, but the government is countering that the installation will not be disruptive and has no plans to 86 the gas project. Meanwhile, Aussies and their Environment Minister are hoping the new center-left government of Japan – which just dislodged over a half century of conservative rule – will be more open to engaging in substantive talks on the prickly issue of Antarctic whale hunting. This picture sums up about how much Australians are fed up with Japanese whaling:  Anti-whaling protester Jamie Yew in 2008. If you’re not thinking about it already, google Jamie Yew. Japan, which kills about 60 rare Baird’s beaked whales per year, does so by arguing that they are small cetaceans, even though they can grow larger than minke whales. And like other fish and ocean mammals at the top of the food chain, they are dangerously high in mercury. And they are rare, perhaps endangered. But that doesn’t seem to mean shit to Japan. |
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