Marine conservationists' battle against Japanese has become more intense. This lead the Sea Shepherd Global, the self-proclaimed "direct action" ocean conservation organization, a group that fights against poaching, hunting, and illegal fishing, to introduce their latest weapon against Japan's whaling industry, the Ocean Warrior.
According to Headlines and Global News, Sea Shepherd chief executive Alex Cornelissen stated that their group has been missing one thing in their fleet: a vessel with speed and endurance.
The 54-yard Ocean Warrior needed 18 months to build by a Dutch shipbuilding firm. With its state of the art hybrid propulsion, four powerful engines and a helicopter landing deck, and a red cannon mounted on the bridge which can eject a mighty spume of water to inhibit the visibility of the whalers, the Ocean Warrior cost 8.3 million euros or $9.3 million with funding from public lotteries based in Great Britain, The Netherlands, and Sweden.
Cornelissen was confident that the Ocean Warrior can outmatch any poaching vessels and with its speed and endurance, the vessel will help them be able to follow anywhere the poachers go and run away from them if the war gets too aggressive.
Sea Shepherd has fought for their advocacy to "defend, conserve, and protect" marine life in the vast expanses of the planet's oceans for almost 40 years according to Yahoo! News.
Around 5,000 whales were also saved by the Sea Shepherd Global for the past ten years. They are also preparing for their 11th campaign in the Southern Ocean: Operation Nemesis.
Despite the global moratorium imposed in 1986, Japan has still continued hunting whales.
Tokyo has sought to close down the campaigns on anti-whaling in court complaining that the activists ram their ships and snare propellers with ropes, harass their crews by using paint and stink bombs on them.
On the other hand, the marine conservationists complain that the whalers usually throw stun grenades at them and try to sabotage their vessels.
"I'm hopeful, because we've seen the whalers go down and they'll continue to go down, because we'll continue to make their lives miserable down there," said Cornelissen.
