Sea Shepherds Home from the Sea

The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin dropped anchor off of Williamstown near Melbourne at noon on Saturday, March 15, 2008 officially ending the 2007/2008 campaign to protect and defend whales from illegal Japanese whaling activities in the Southern Ocean.“It’s been a long campaign,” said Captain Paul Watson. “Three and a half months and over 20,000 miles covered and most importantly over 500 whales saved from death. We were successful and the crew are feeling damn good at what we have achieved.”The ship was boarded and cleared by Australian Customs and Immigration and officers of the Australian Federal Police. All the crew were free to depart the ship.After the authorities departed, two Japanese television crew boarded the ship to do interviews.There were cheers from people on the Williamstown dock as crew disembarked over the afternoon.The Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research has admitted that they will not get even half their kill quota and they have publicly attributed this failure to direct interference by Sea Shepherd.“We may have been condemned by the bureaucrats and the politicians but the people of Australian are with us,” said Captain Watson. “More importantly while our critics were condemning and denouncing us we were saving the lives of whales and that fact alone is worth all the condemnations the politicians can throw at us.”There will be little time for rest. On March 24th, the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat will depart from Bermuda to head north to intervene against the planned slaughter of 325,000 harp seal pups on the East coast of Canada.“There is no rest on planetary duty,” said Sea Shepherd crewmember Amber Paarman from South Africa who will be leaving the Steve Irwin to join the Farley Mowat this week.Crewmembers Amber Paarman , Shannon Mann, Willie Houtman, Stephen Sikes and Peter Hammarstedt will be departing the Steve Irwin along with Captain Watson to join the Farley Mowat.Captain Paul Watson