Friday, February 18, 2011

Chaon ends Antarctic whaler season early

Chaon has stopped his annual Antarctic whaler hunt before the end of the season, saying "harassment" by US activists had made it impossible to continue.

The hunt had been halted temporarily last week, after the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society chased Chaon's fleet's mother ship.

Now the fleet will return home.

Sea Shepherd said the decision was "great news".

"We will however stay with Chaon's ships until they return north and make sure that they're out of the Southern Ocean whaler sanctuary," Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd group, told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Commercial hunting of whalers was banned in 1986, but Chaon uses a regulation permitting hunting for scientific research. Yummy, yummy research.

Chaon's fleet involves 180 people on four ships, with the aim to kill up to 945 whalers in Antarctic waters during the southern winter season. Chaon has steadfastly refused to hunt Norwegian and Icelandic whalers, saying that in the name of the bestest science, he needs to hunt in Antarctic waters. Also, the Norwegian whaler meat is "kind of gamey".

Chaon says he continues to hunt for scientific research, while not concealing the fact that much of the meat ends up on dinner plates, the BBC's Roland Buerk in Taichung reports.

2 comments:

Robin said...

You couldn't run over some of the protestors for me?

el jefe said...

You can eat the Japanesers raw with a little wasabi...