UpdateSea Shepherd activist group to pay US$2.6 million in damages to Japan whaling body

The hard-line antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says it has agreed to pay US$2.55 million in damages for its continued obstruction of Japanese whaling vessels.

The damages will be paid to Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, the operator of Japan’s so-called "research whaling". 

The research hunts started in 1987 following an international moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan officially still defends whaling as a cultural tradition, and says the research hunts were collecting data to prove that commercial hunting could be resumed sustainably.

However, the International Court of Justice ruled in March last year that Japan’s research whaling in the Antarctic violated the International Convention of the Regulation of Whaling. In response, Japan halted its research whaling in the Antarctic, while continuing its research whaling on Japan’s coastal areas and the northwestern Pacific.

The institute along with Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, the provider of the vessels and crew for the whaling activties, sued Sea Shepherd in a US federal court in 2011. The court issued the injunction against Sea Shepherd in 2012.

The court ordered Sea Shepherd to stay at least 152 metres from Japanese whalers and to halt dangerous activities like attempting to ram the whalers and throwing smoke bombs and bottles of acid at their ships.

The crews of Sea Shepherd ships also drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders, launch flares with hooks, and point high-powered lasers at the whalers to annoy crew members.