Sea Shepherd: Operation Zero Tolerance

This was Sea Shepherd’s 2012-2013 campaign: Operation Zero Tolerance.

This was Sea Shepherd’s 9th year in Antarctica, and every year we return for the same reason: to stop the Japanese Whaling Fleet’s attempt to slaughter one thousand whales that migrate to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for the Antarctic summer.

Sea Shepherd is a non-profit marine wildlife conservation organisation. Their endeavour to protect the marine environment spans across everything from Shark finning in the Galapagos; the Dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan; Tuna poaching in the Mediterranean and Seal clubbing in Canada, but they are mostly known for their anti-whaling campaign against the Japanese Whaling Fleet. Fundamentally, their goal is to end habitat destruction and wildlife slaughter in the world’s oceans.

Every year, the Japanese Whaling Fleet return to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in attempt to slaughter one thousand whales. The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (which is located 40° South parallel) was established by The International Whaling Commission in 1994. To further that, there has been an international moratorium on commercial whaling worldwide since 1986. The Whaling Fleet is operated by a Japanese establishment, The Institute of Cetacean Research, which was founded in 1987 – a year after the international commercial whaling ban became active. There is a loophole in the ban that the Japanese Whalers continue to abuse in order to disguise their commercial whale hunts under Scientific Research.

Sea Shepherd’s purpose of action is to stop this horrific mass slaughter.

We left in November when the air was just starting to turn warm for Australia’s summer, and set our course for Antarctica. Even though we had spent many, many months preparing our ships, the crew onboard the Sea Shepherd ships had been hoping the upcoming campaign wouldn’t be necessary; keeping our fingers tightly crossed that the Whaling Fleet would stay in Japan and not plan to hunt whales this year. But when it was announced the Whaling Fleet had started their preparations to leave port, we were all instantly determined and committed to stopping their illegal and unnecessary whaling. With our crew on board, our Captains at the helm and our energies high, the Sea Shepherd fleet of four ships left our port in Melbourne, Australia and began our voyage South for campaign Operation Zero Tolerance.

We navigated our way past New Zealand, Auckland Islands, and MacQuarrie Island, where the environment rapidly started to change around us. We stopped seeing land and other ships, we soon sailed upon our first icebergs, whales and penguins. The days began to get cold and the nights even colder, the ocean turned brutal and rough, with sea swells as high as our ship throwing us around relentlessly.

The Japanese Whaling Fleet consists of several vessels: There are three harpoon ships, the Yushin Maru 1, 2 and 3; a security vessel, the Shōnon Maru; a refuelling vessel, the Sun Laurel and most importantly there’s the Nisshin Maru. The Nisshin Maru is the factory ship, it’s the ship to which the whales are transferred to be butchered and processed. It’s the flag ship of the Whaling Fleet: It’s our main goal. The Nisshin Maru has a slipway on the stern, which is how whales are transferred from the harpoon ships, if this slipway is blocked then whales can not be transferred, if they cannot transfer whales, they cannot hunt whales. This is what we needs to be accomplished in order to halt their whale hunt and send them back home.

But finding the whaling fleet is one of the hardest parts of the campaign. By the time the Sea Shepherd ships finally arrived in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, we had already started our search for the Japanese Whaling Fleet; eyes constantly searching the horizon through binoculars and watching the radar for any possible target and hoping that maybe, hopefully, we would be finding them soon: we knew they were down there somewhere.

Early in the morning on campaign became my favourite time, especially when the sea was calm: The Antarctic breeze was frosty against my cheeks, the quiet of the air and stillness of the world, everything was silent; tranquil. The only thing I could hear was the rush of water in the ship’s wake and occasionally whales exhaling beside the ship: a sound that stole my heart. The ocean was like a mirror, still and crystal. There were magnificent icebergs as we softly sailed past, some the size of my home island. Every so often Humpbacks or Fin whales would pass by the ship, coming up for air: a huge breath before peacefully diving back down leaving only ripples behind. In the crisp morning chill, I would stand in awe admiring the magic of such a wonderland place.

The days started to get long and they passed by slowly, weeks went by as we continued our search for the Japanese Whaling Fleet. We spent Christmas on the high seas and we bought in the New Year as sailors.

After weeks and weeks of searching, we received the news that we’d all been waiting for: The crew of our sister ship, the Bob Barker, had found the Nisshin Maru, we were close by, and heading to their location at full speed.

The morning we found the Niss

I walked up to the bridge; it was busy, everyone was quiet and concentrating, so I wrapped my scarf around my neck, put my hat and gloves on, and stepped outside onto the bridgewing. It was early and the frosty morning was introduced with a most spectacular sunrise: a beautiful array of oranges, reds, golds and yellows; the whole sky was a burning hot colour. An albatross in the distance made a silhouette against the bright sky, as the sun was rising behind icebergs. We were so far down south that the temperature had plummeted, sea water had frozen to the ship overnight, and standing outside made my ears, toes and nose numb. I exhaled and the warmth of my breath was visible in the outside cold, my fingers started stinging inside my gloves from the ice-cold air.

I looked ahead, the Nisshin Maru was there, only a mile or so away from us. It was the biggest ship I had ever seen, the Bob Barker was dwarfed by the size. The Nisshin Maru looked like a factory; black, with a red hull and the superstructure above deck was a dusty yellow. It was trailed by a lingering smell of rotting fish: dead whales. The large iconic ‘RESEARCH’ written on the side made me think of all the photographs I had seen of this ship, and how I never thought I would ever see it with my own eyes.

The outside atmosphere was quiet. The Nisshin Maru had slowed to an almost-drift, as had the Steve Irwin. The light wind whispered through my hat into my ears as we slowly glided toward them. I stood on the bridgewing and watched ahead. My toes were getting colder and colder inside my shoes. I was standing on ice that had frozen to the deck overnight, and maybe, I thought, I might slip. But the sea was flat and calm as we drifted slowly toward the giant floating slaughterhouse. For a lot of us, this is the first time we’ve ever seen the Nisshin Maru. A bitter-sweet experience: an overwhelming emotion mixed with excitement for finding them and controlled anger: they have no right to be murdering whales in a whale sanctuary, these poachers need to go home.

There wasn’t long left of the Antarctic summer, and soon the continent would start heading into winter. The Nisshin Maru was high out of the water, which meant it was running low on fuel, and because the Antarctic Treaty forbids refuelling under 60° South, we knew the whaling fleet didn’t have long left until they needed to turn around and head north, back to Japan. The Sea Shepherd ships were going to remain vigilant and determined, now that we had found the whaling fleet we weren’t going to let them continue hunting whales.

I woke to a sudden impact, followed by the sound of metal screeching along our hull and a heavy blast of water on my porthole. I ran to the window and as the water slowly cleared from the glass, the Nisshin Maru became visible, with the rumble of their water-canon continuing to pound along our superstructure towards the bow of the Steve Irwin.

I threw on my jeans and left my cabin. As I made my way through the hallways, I could hear the loud muffled blaring of fog horns and a what sounded like a pre-recorded announcement coming from the megaphone of the Nisshin Maru.

On the bridge of the Steve Irwin I find out that the impact that woke me was us being rammed by the Nisshin Maru, but the ship was okay. Everyone was concentrating, between trying to stop the Nisshin Maru escaping from our sight, dodging collisions from the rest of the Whaling Fleet and avoiding small icebergs, everyone on bridge watch was busy doing their job, with the occasional instructions calmly called out. The atmosphere was quiet and collected.

I headed outside onto the bridge-wing. A strange sound filled the air, a peculiar silence in-between the sound of foghorns and the background hum of ship’s engines. We’d been following the fleet for two days, but the Whaling Fleet had grown frustrated and during the night, the Nisshin Maru had moved South into a minefield of icebergs, in a failed attempt to escape from the Sea Shepherd fleet.

During their whaling months, the Japanese Whaling Fleet commission a Korean refuelling tanker, the Sun Laurel, to fill their fuel supplies mid-season. By this time, the Sun Laurel had arrived at our location, and were going to attempt to refuel the Nisshin Maru, enabling them to stay down south for longer. This would obviously be terrible news for the whales, and they had to be prevented. It’s also illegal to refuel under 60º south.

On a full tank of fuel, the Nisshin Maru can outrun the Sea Shepherd fleet, but by this point in the season, the Nisshin Maru being so low on fuel meant that they were currently unable to escape us to continue their hunt. Sea Shepherd’s goal had now become preventing the Nisshin Maru from refuelling from the Sun Laurel, and ultimately preventing them from pursuing their whale hunt.

A couple of Sea Shepherd’s ships and had placed themselves either side of the Sun Laurel, preventing the Nisshin Maru from docking alongside to refuel, with the harpoon ships lingering nearby. Despite the confrontations happening, everything moved slowly.

Seeing an opportunity, the Nisshin Maru suddenly started to moving quickly towards the stern of the Bob Barker. Its bow edging into the small gap between the Bob Barker and the Sun Laurel. The sudden sound of metal screeching and buckling filled the air as the Nisshin Maru effortlessly rammed into the side of the Bob Barker, the whalers anger and frustration evident.

I’m stood on the bridge wing watching, entirely still, with my hand over my mouth; a million thoughts running through my head. The Bob Barker immediately issued a may-day: they’ve lost power and steering. We watch the Bob Barker slowly list more and more, we hear more metal being crippled, the Nisshin Maru is still trying to squeeze in, if they don’t stop, the Bob Barker might capsize. There are other crew members stood with me watching too, everyone feeling entirely helpless, there’s nothing the crew on the Steve Irwin can do except watch and wait, listening to the sound of a horns going off, the sound of something metal snapping. After what felt like ages, the Nisshin Maru stopped and slowly backed up, the Sun Laurel and the Bob Barker sat bobbing in the water, and for a moment, everything stopped.

We hear from the Bob Barker over our radio; they’re okay. We learn that the crew rushed into the engine room, they took on some water but the damage to the hull was repairable, they didn’t need to evacuate ship. Several of their antennas are down, the heli-deck is heavily damaged, and so is the mast, but the crew are okay and will be able to restore power.

For the next few days everything was pretty quiet. The whaling fleet attempted to refuel once more, but were prevented. The Sea Shepherd fleet remained vigilant; we were cautiously optimistic that any day now, the Whaling Fleet would give up, turn north, finish their season, and start their journey back to Japan. The time went by slowly as we followed them closely. There’s not long left of the Antarctic summer: whales have already started migrating and Antarctica is ready to start her brutal, inhabitable winter; the weather had already started getting worse.

On the 2nd of March, 2013, we were all called into the Mess, and were given the news that the fleet had changed course and were heading north, this meant they’d started their journey home. Incredible news! Some of us cried, crew members hugged each other, this is the news we’d been hoping for for weeks. Such a huge relief to know that after so much hard work, they’re finally going home.

I celebrated my 22nd birthday on the ship, on the way back to Australia. Surrounded by friends who I’d spent 4 months out at sea with. Enjoying knowing the campaign was over and Sea Shepherd had been incredibly successful. We’d prevented the Japanese Whaling Fleet from killing 768 whales. The Whalers returned to Japan with 267 whales from their over 1,000 whale quota, and Sea Shepherd ready for the next campaign to help save marine wildlife.

I’d wrote a vast majority of this blog back in 2013 after the campaign, but unfortunately never got around to publishing it until now (2020). Currently whaling is still an issue, several countries still hunt whales and the Japanese Whaling Fleet are still going down to Antarctica every year. If you want to help stop this, you can volunteer for Sea Shepherd, or help donate to their efforts.