Reflections of One Year Ago

Greetings everyone. For those who are still following here from a year ago, you might remember yesterday and today as two days that really brought the world's eyes to Taiji, Japan. It was roughly one year ago that the fishermen of Taiji rounded up a superpod of over 200 bottlenose dolphins into the killing cove of Taiji.

I'm not going to be going over the entire story of what happened again as it has been a year, but I do want to reflect back on what was going on at the time and some major images and feelings that exploded over a four day period when these dolphins were being held with no food and in many cases divided from their families

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Among the pod was an infant albino bottlenose dolphin. Originally it was thought that this dolphin would fetch an extremely heavy profit, but due to health conditions, the baby was sentenced to a life at the Taiji Whale Museum where it lives among preserved dolphin heads and an array of other objects such as dolphin fetuses jars... The baby was named "Angel" by conservationists and continues to be viewed as a major victim of the greed of the Taiji Dolphin Slaughter. As for Angel's mother... It is believed that she was one of the many that were slaughtered over the course of the four days.

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The fishermen continued to prove to the now watching world that they truly have no regard for the lives of the dolphins they had caught. Time and time again, the fishermen would cut through the dolphin pod with skiffs, cutting many with the propeller of the skiff's motor as seen in the image above. This image of the dolphins being run over still brings back the feelings of anger and sorrow for these animals that were present at the time this was occurring. Many of the dolphins that were injured from the boats were slaughtered. 

The travesty that was occurring in Taiji drew the attention of the United States Ambassador Caroline Kennedy who posted on Twitter her concern about the inhumanity of Taiji. The town of Taiji would invite Caroline to Taiji to witness how humane the killing is. To my knowledge Caroline never made the trip to Taiji. At least she isn't blind to how inhumae the killings are...( Not for nothing, but spearing an animal time and time again until it's dead is not my idea of humane... Neither is jamming a cork in a marine mammal's blowhole to prevent bleeding.)

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

As has been the case over the past few years, the killers of Taiji would try to hide what they do so "humanely" from the world by covering their operation with tarps. Still the gaps in the tarps exposed the blood red waters of the cove. 

Pressure from social media as well as world media eventually made itself known and luckily a large number of this superpod was driven back out to sea with the same techniques that they were driven into the cove. The Anonymous collective responded with the hacking of over 150 websites with connections to Taiji, including Sea World. CNN ran a special segment educating people about Taiji. Twitter and Facebook exploded with outrage. For the first time since "The Cove" was released, Taiji was openly attacked by virtually everyone for what it was doing.

One year ago as Taiji hit the media again I had hoped that an end may have been so so close. However, life continued on and Taiji slowly fell back into the shadows and those who had been fighting continued to fight, but many of the outraged public fell back to their daily lives and the fishermen continued to do what they do best. In total 52 of the dolphins were sold into captivity, 41 died while in the nets, and roughly 130-140 were driven back out to sea. So here we are one year later. Taiji continues to capture and kill dolphins at will. 

What needs to be remembered at all times is why this slaughter even happens. I do not care what anyone's position is on cetaceans in captivity. I do not mean this to be pro or anti captivity, but here is the fact. This slaughter is largely the result of the captive dolphin industry. The Taiji fishermen and government claim that the primary reason this slaughter takes place is for food. The problem with that claim is that the demand for dolphin meat is so low it often is mislabeled as greater whale meat. Even then, it is really a chore to sell the meat as the demand for whale meat as a whole is on the decline as well. No folks, the real driving force behind the slaughter is the captive dolphin industry. Here is a very simple proof. Lets take a single bottlenose dolphin. The meat of that dolphin is worth roughly $100 USD, perhaps a bit more. That same dolphin can easily be sold into captivity for about $200,000 USD. That's not counting Angel whose price was approaching $4,000,000 before her health problems were noted.

The facts are what they are and until the demand for dolphins dies, this slaughter will continue. Without the captive trade, there would be no slaughter as there simply is not enough money generated without it. Japan claims that the Taiji drive hunt is a proud tradition. If it is so proud, why hide it? If it is so proud why try and prevent the world from seeing. The fact is that this "hunt" is nothing more than a massive greed move on the hands of Japan right up there with it's so called "scientific whale program". If the money stopped flowing, this "proud" tradition would fall to the wayside sooner rather than later.  

The Continuing Saga of Chasing Poachers

Greetings once again everyone! I hope all is well as usual. Today's blog will not be too terribly long, but will be yet another update on what is going on in both the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean in regards to Sea Shepherd pursuing illegal toothfish poachers. Before getting started I'd like to remind everyone that this is mostly a shark blog, but lately there's been a ton of news about the toothfish situation. Alright so let's get to it.

My last blog ended as Sea Shepherd was still, and still is hot on the trail of the illegal fishing vessel "Thunder". Since then the New Zealand Navy had intercepted three other illegal fishing vessels in the Southern Ocean, but were denied permission to board and inspect the vessels.

Photo: New Zealand Defense Force

The ships, which can clearly be seen illegally catching toothfish did not fear the navy and continued to fish. New Zealand's Navy did nothing more than photograph and follow the vessels after being denied permission to board. The Navy followed and documented the activities until their ship needed to refuel. At that time Sea Shepherd announced that they would take up the chase of the three vessels with the "Sam Simon" while the "Bob Barker" continues to pursue the "Thunder". The Sea Shepherd vessel arrived at the last known location of the fishing vessels and began to recover a third massive gillnet. Once recovered the conservation group will set out to find the fishing vessels. In the mean time, Interpol has issued Purple Notices for all three ships and New Zealand has began contacting a variety of countries where these ships may attempt to offload their catch. New Zealand also claims that it will make it very difficult for these ships to offload their illegal cargo.

So that is where we are in what is becoming a saga of chasing poachers in the Southern and Indian Oceans. New Zealand's Navy has stepped up and the very real possibility remains that they will again go to the Southern Ocean to search for poachers. While New Zealand is doing what it can, Australia continues to idly stand by and do nothing to prevent the ravaging of the Southern Ocean as they have done year after year after year.

Illegal Toothfish Poachers to be Brought to Justice?

Greeting everyone. Today I come to you all with some cautiously good news. Reports are that the country of Mozambique is preparing to arrest the illegal toothfish vessel, "Thunder" should the vessel enter the country's waters. Ports throughout Mozambique have been alerted to the approaching vessel. It is estimated that the amount of catch that the "Thunder" is carrying could exceed a couple million dollars. Due to the ship beginning to run low on fuel and the need to offload it's catch, the ship will have to head to a port sooner than later. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who has been tailing the ship for a record 25 days, noted that the ship had slowed to a crawl of roughly 2 knots. The latest information I could find is that the ships are roughly 1,200 miles away from Mozambique and are well out of the Southern Ocean where the chase began.

Since the poaching vessel was spotted by Sea Shepherd 25 days ago, the ship has been on the run and has not been fishing. The other Sea Shepherd vessel in the area has been working on pulling up the illegal gillnets that the "Thunder" abandoned as they began to run. So far one massive gillnet has been recovered and a second at last update was still being recovered and appeared to be over 100 kilometers in length (over 60 miles). Over 250 toothfishes alone have been recovered and much of the catch is still being identified as many are in a state of serious decay. As the pressure continues to mount on the poachers, they have started to become more and more desperate.

Slowing to a crawling pace is not the only change in behavior of the vessel that had been doing everything it could to outrun the Sea Shepherd vessel. Over the past couple of days, the poachers have employed aggressive tactics such as shining their search lights directly onto the bridge of the Sea Shepherd ship, "Bob Barker", as well as aggressively turning and charging towards the larger conservation vessel. This shows me that these "people" are getting desperate. Until they began to act aggressively, the crew of the "Thunder" tried to escape Sea Shepherd by moving through the dense ice fields of the Southern Ocean as well as moving through incredibly strong Southern Ocean storms. Since they failed to lose the tail of the conservationists, the poachers have been heading north and as mentioned early, at last update were roughly 1,200 miles away from Mozambique.

With any luck, the poachers will continue to inch towards the waiting arms of Mozambique. With any luck the country that is claiming to be ready to apprehend these criminals will step up and do the job that should have been done by either France, Australia, or New Zealand when the ship was still in the Southern Ocean. This 25 day chase has been going on as an exact result of these three countries failure to arrest a vessel on the Interpol Purple List. Still, Sea Shepherd has not allowed these poachers to get away with their illegal fishing operation. They claim that they will follow these poachers to whichever port they land at, and virtually to the ends of the Earth. Once again, people who love the Ocean can thank this conservation group for taking care of the work of Governments. Hopefully the next time I blog on this topic it will be about the arrest of these illegal toothfish poachers!

Driving the Seas to the End

Greetings everyone. I hope all continues to be well. Today's blog is basically a continuation of my previous blog. In fact just mere hours after I posted that blog, Sea Shepherd announced that they had found and were in the process of bringing up another massive illegal gillnet in the Southern Ocean. As I type this blog, the conservation group continues to bring up the gillnet which is already over 10 kilometers ( over 6 miles) in length. Within this net are toothfish and various other species of fish, many of which are said, and certainly appear to be in a serious state of decay. So with that being said, this blog is largely going to be a visual blog. In my last blog I mentioned how dangerous this style of fishing is. This blog, thanks to Jeff Wirth and Sea Shepherd Global on Facebook, I can really show you what this type of fishing does to these animals and just how indiscriminate it is. With that being said.... WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES AHEAD!!!!!!!


















The images tell the story. What makes all of this so much worse is that this net is an illegal net belonging to the poaching vessel "Thunder". Sea Shepherd is currently thinking that there are roughly double the number of animals in this net that was in the previous. This is a sad sad scenario, and the worst part about it is that this is not the only place in the world this is happening. Gillnet fishing is allowed in many areas of the world still and all too often scenarios where nets are left for too long or abandoned are all too common. This practice is highly unsustainable. Literally hundreds of toothfish in a single massive net among who knows how many other fishes, rays, etc. This form of destructive fishing is contributing to the depletion of various species of fish worldwide. This along with long line fishing are too destructive to exist in the fragile world we live in. If fish stocks word-wide are ever going to have a chance at making any sort of a comeback, gillnet fishing and long line fishing need to be either extremely reduced or eliminated.

A New Year!/ Further Poaching Evidence in the Southern Ocean

Happy New Year one and all! Greetings and welcome to 2015 everybody. I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's Eve and Day. I'm going to dive right on in and fill you all in on what I have planned for the year 2015. First for the minor things. Expect to see a new blog layout coming in the near future. I've been using the same layout since I did my final operation so I think some change is in order. Perhaps brighten some things up a bit.... Perhaps not. Wait and see on that I guess is the best thing I can say. At the very least expect a new background soon. Keep watch because I plan on playing around with some other things on here too soon! Another little fun thing that I am going to be doing this year is a Shark of the Month blog. Basically these will be educational blogs about a specific species of shark. I'll be doing on of those blogs once a month. I'll try to include some videos, pictures, fun facts, and of course conservation information on top of all the other information I'll be putting out there about these 12 individual species (yes I have most of them done already).

Now for the bigger news. In the past this blog has focused on the following animals...
Sharks
Dolphins
Whales
Manta Rays
Bluefin Tuna
For this year I will be doing something a tad different. The overall focus of this blog will remain on sharks, but I am going to be expanding the manta rays to all species of ray including the endangered sawfish. I will be cutting back a little bit on the marine mammal portion of the blog and expanding the bluefin tuna portion to encompass overfishing in general. I guess you could say the rundown of the blog for 2015 will look something like this...

Sharks
Rays
Overfishing
Dolphins
Whales

I know many of you that read this blog are avid dolphin and whale lovers and I am as well. However, I feel that more attention needs to be brought to the other animals that live in the seas. While dolphins and whales are being exploited, there is no denying that sharks, rays, and many species of bony fish are being exploited far more. I want to make it clear to everyone though that I am not abandoning the marine mammals. There will still be plenty to talk about with them! So with all that being said I will now set the stage for the first blog of 2015!

2014 came to an end with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in hot pursuit of the illegal toothfish vessel "Thunder" in the Southern Ocean. From Christmas day through December 30th, the conservation group's second vessel, "Sam Simon" came across a massive illegal gillnet in the Southern Ocean that is believed to belong to the "Thunder". The net that was pulled from the sea is roughly 15 and a half MILES long. Inside the net was over 200 toothfish and a variety of bycatch that included jellyfishes, rays, crabs, and grenadiers (the fish not a person throwing grenades).

Many of the toothfish were female as seen by the eggs above (Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd)

 I cannot stress enough how destructive this method of fishing is. The Southern Ocean is a world that we know so little about. Even less so than the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian which we know nothing about either in reality. We have very little clue as to what the status of any fish is down there and in a very short period of time, members of a variety of species were caught in these nets and died. You may think to yourself "gill netting is a very old style of fishing so it can't be that bad". Well if that is your mentality consider this.

For example. Go back to before engines were invented in the United States. Colonists and Native Americans would use small gillnets to catch fish to feed their families. Since the nets were nowhere near 15 miles long, bycatch was very limited as was the potential catch. Now though, these massive nets collect a large amount of targeted catch and bycatch. So much in fact that in 1992, the United Nations banned the use of gillnets in International Waters and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources banned the use of gillnets in the Southern Ocean in 2004. This practice is banned for a very good reason. It can have devastating effects on the ecosystems in which they are used. This overfishing of the Antarctic toothfishes will eventually have a huge impact not only on the fish themselves, but the legal fishermen who catch them when and how they are supposed to. There are people that depend on these fish and soon they may not be able to as long as these poachers are allowed to freely scoop up as many fish as they see fit.

Sea Shepherd continues to tail the "Thunder" in the Southern Ocean. They have effectively shutdown one illegal toothfish operation with still no response from Australia, New Zealand, or France. It continues to be a true shame that these countries that are in the area refuse to bring these poachers to justice even as the evidence against them continues to mount. One would think that other fishery collapses around the world due to overfishing would give these governments a clue as to what could very well happen in the Southern Ocean.... Perhaps someday it will... More to come on this story from the Southern Ocean as Sea Shepherd continues doing what the governments of the world should be doing in Operation: Ice Fish.

It's Just a Game Folks... Just a Game

Greetings everyone! Tonight I will be looking at a bit of a different topic, but bear with me here cause there is a point to what I'm about to say. Tonight's blog will be focusing in on sharks.... and video games. In the past I've gone out and blogged about Shark Week and shark movies and other things regarding sharks in the media, but never video games. As a type little descriptions about these games keep in mind what the point of these games are... Then I'll get to the point sort to speak.



Jaws is obviously named after the hit movie with the same name and was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. The point of this game was to navigate your boat around the ocean while occasionally controlling a scuba diver to combat sea life with a spear gun. Eventually Jaws would appear and you would try to kill him by driving your boat through him after zapping him. So your main objective here is to kill the shark.



In more modern times video games have greatly changed their tune. If a game like Jaws from 1987 came out today, chances are it would flop. No what people want nowadays is not to play the hero, but play the monster. Jaws Revenge was released on the Itunes App Store back in 2011 and continues to be updated today. The objective of this game is simple. You control Jaws and eat everything and anything in your path. Leaping out of the water to snag helicopters out of midair, catching water skiers, and combating military are just a few of the things that you can do as you play. Oh and there is plenty of blood and screaming to go around.



In 2006 Jaws Unleashed was released on Sony's Playstation 2 as well as Microsoft's Xbox and PC. The game was a dream come true for anyone who wanted a crack at being a monster shark and literally be able to tear people limb from limb. As Jaws, here are some of the things that you could do in this game. Drown people, tear people's limbs off, eat people, make people somehow explode by slapping them with your tail, sink boats, cause boats to explode by landing on them, kill an orca, eat dolphins, blow up an offshore oil drilling operation,.. The list goes on... More often than not, the water you swim in will be red and you die via getting too hungry...

Alright I'll stop there with my nerdy video game things. So why did I bring these three in particular up (There are PLENTY more, but I'll spare you all that for now at least)? There is a common trend here. The first Jaws game on the Nintendo was somewhat based on the movies, but the key was when it was released. The terror of Jaws was very real and very alive and well during that time period. People were, and still are petrified to go into the water for fear of that monster shark getting them. While we look at this really silly game today as well... silly... people still had a fear of sharks and here was something to take that fear a bit farther. Now though I don't think anyone can find this even remotely intimidating on a TV screen...



Jaws Revenge is on the Itunes store for free. That means a lot of people have played it and not all audiences that have played it probably should have. I'm talking not about people with a fear of sharks, but children in particular. Here's a game of hungry hungry hippos where the shark is the hippo and humans are the little balls. That idea that sharks eat people is drilled into the head of kids so much already that believe it or not, I've personally had kids ask me if sharks do what they do on this game. It's kinda scary to me that that is even a question, but for a child who knows nothing about sharks, it's a legit question to ask. Of all the shark games that can be found on the Itunes store, this is probably the one that a lot of people (myself included)  have tried out largely thanks to it's title.

Jaws Unleashed is another beast entirely. It is flat out brutal in terms of the image of sharks. Obviously there would be no game without the big killer shark and if you were the little diver against the shark, it'd probably be a terrible gaming experience. As I said before, things in gaming have changed so much and there is now a want to be the monster and not the hero. Well in this game you are the monster and a mindless eating machine. Nothing more to say there...

The point I would like to get across here is this. Video games are just that. Video games. They (in most cases) do not depict real life. However, in the case of shark video games, there are people that will take these games, play them, and think that what they are seeing and doing are what sharks actually do. I've had kids ask me about Jaws Revenge stuff and I've had kids ask me if a shark could jump onto a beach, struggle up the sand, grab someone and take them back into the water. I've also had people ask me if a shark has the ability to think and fight it's way out of an aquarium setting (one of the first things you do in Jaws Unleashed). It's scary that some people take these games as real life. The name Jaws to this day continues to strike fear into the hearts of countless people and continues to draw the attention of countless others. Attaching that name to a shark game brings in so many more people who really do not know what these animals are and takes it for real life.

From a business standpoint, that is a splendid move. From a conservation standpoint, it is a nightmare. Here we are fighting to save these animals yet we wind up having to deal with things such as shark reputations thanks to how they are put out in movies and videogames. As I have said with Shark Week. Remember folks, it's just media and in this case, it's just a game. Nothing more. Nothing less!

Merry Fishmas/Merry Christmas/Year in Review Blog

Hello again everyone. I would like to thank each and every one of you who has helped to make this blog what it is today. I started this blog a couple years ago with the objective of opening just one person's eyes to what is going on in our oceans. I never for a moment thought we'd be where we are now. So again I would like to thank all of you as without you this blog would probably have fallen to the wayside years ago. I know I have not been very active over the past few months, but that will now hopefully change as it seems more things are starting to fall into place that will allow me to blog more once again! So lets take a look back at this year and retouch on a few topics that I touched on to perhaps clear some things up or just remind us all that they are actually happening in the world around us.

January
2014 started off with Sea Shepherd once again hampering Japan's whale poaching campaign in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
West Australia laid out it's plan to cull sharks. Remember that during the upcoming cull that over 100 tiger sharks would be slaughtered in an attempt at killing great white sharks in which zero were killed.
Iceland in a strange move decided to place whale beer on the market in an attempt to sell people on eating whale. The beer sold from late January through late February.
An extinct species of shark, the smoothtooth blacktip shark was rediscovered!
Finally, Taiji, Japan returned to news headlines following the capture of a superpod of bottlenose dolphins in the killing cove. Let's touch on this once again as it was and is still a huge moment.
 
The albino dolphin in this photo would become known as "Angel" and is currently housed in the Taiji Whale Museum. Her family was divided up. Some slaughtered, others driven back out to sea after several days of not eating. Thanks to Anonymous, Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project, and Sea Shepherd Taiji made news headlines for the first time since The Cove was released. Sadly though the attention on Taiji has fallen back off while Japan continues to slaughter dolphins at will with no regard to what the rest of the world thinks.

February
The first shark in West Australia's shark cull was caught. The shark was claimed to be a bull shark buuuuut..... 
As this image that flew ll over the place notes, the shark was not a bull shark but a tiger shark. This image really tells the tale of what the shark cull would be. Uneducated paid "fishermen" killing whatever sharks they wanted to kill. It wouldn't be long before most rules would fly out the window with these guys. Remember this shark cull happened to make beaches safer.... By baiting the water and attracting sharks...Many of the sharks that were released by fishermen were too badly injured and died soon after release. All of the released sharks were small and had not yet had a chance to reproduce. Some were returned to see after having their throats slit, others after having a hook hacked out of their heads.


The cull continued and eventually bycatch became an issue as a small dolphin appeared to have been killed, but was never confirmed by the fisheries agency. It was one of the few animals to be taken to the dumping grounds covered by a tarp which only made suspicions grow.

March
Illinois and California shark fin laws showed some bite as arrests were made on people possessing and selling shark fin products.
The world court found Japan's whaling operations to be not scientific and had to be altered if it were to continue. This helped to lead us to where we are today. As I type this blog, Japan is NOT whaling in the Southern Ocean. Rather, they are redesigning their "scientific" whaling program to meet the standards that are required. Chances are they will return to the Southern Ocean to hunt whales next year, but for at least one year, the whales an swim safe in a whale SANCTUARY.

May
The West Australia shark cull came to an end and with it came the final figures. Here are the final figures for catches from start to finish...
0 great whites
1 very small bull shark
157 tiger sharks
1 northwest puffer (bycatch)
1 spinner shark (bycatch)
1 dusky whaler (bycatch)
3 mako shark (bycatch)
7 stingrays (bycatch)
Out of all the sharks caught roughly 70% were undersized and were released though the condition of the sharks at the time of release were far from acceptable. West Australia aimed to continue the program for another 3 years.

June
The Maldives granted protection for 18 species of rays, including manta rays.

July
Denmark showed it's support for whaling by sending the Danish Navy to control Sea Shepherd in the Faroe Islands.

This blog was hacked! Still not sure by whom or from where, but clearly I had angered someone :)

September
Something truly amazing happened. In the state of Maryland a sand tiger shark was caught alive and well with it's fins cut off. The wounds from where the fins were cut were healed over and the shark appeared to be healthy! My personal feelings remain that this is possible due to sand tiger sharks being able to store air in their bodies. This causes them to become neutrally buoyant and not sink if they need to stop swimming. This ability is exclusive to the sand tiger shark. Luckily it seems the major arteries at the base of the fin was not severed which could have led to the animal bleeding to death. It also brought back the realization that just because shark finning is illegal doesn't mean it does not happen. Still though it was quite an amazing discovery to see that animal alive and well.

Well there it is folks. Another year is coming to a close. What happened in October/November/ most of December while I was MIA? On the topics that I cover here, not too much really. The listing of several sharks and manta rays to CITES Appendix II went into effect so those animals now have stricter trade regulations which will greatly help all involved species. Japan has continued to hunt and kill dolphins. West Australia has taken the word overreaction to a whole new level (View my previous blog to discover why) and poachers are apparently allowed to poach in the ocean freely (Again, view previous blog).

Sooooo to wrap up this blog, the last blog before Christmas, but probably not the last blog of the year, I want to again say thank you. It really has ben an incredible ride with this blog. I want to wish you and your families a very merry Christmas if you celebrate and if not I wish you a very happy Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever holiday you will be celebrating in the near future or are celebrating now.