Anti-whaling campaign will be strictly vegetarian

MALIBU, California - (ENS) - There will be no meat or animal products aboard a marine mammal protection vessel when it leaves Auckland early next month to oppose Japanese whaling in the Antarctic.

The 45 volunteer crew of the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's flagship Farley Mowat will be the first completely vegan crew to voyage to the Southern continent, says Sea Shepherd president Paul Watson.

"I don't want to hear the same tired old argument from the Japanese about how whale-savers eat cows but save whales," he said.

"The Japanese say there is no difference between whales and cows," argued Watson. "There are of course, plenty of differences, and the most important difference is that the Antarctic Minke whale is an endangered species, as listed by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"However, if the Japanese see us as hypocrites for eating meat from cows and not from whales, we have effectively removed this charge of hypocrisy by declaring the Farley Mowat as a meat-free zone."

A vegan is someone who avoids using or consuming animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans also avoid dairy and eggs, as well as fur, leather, wool, down, and cosmetics or chemical products tested on animals.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has always made vegan and vegetarian meals available to the crews of its various ships. Still, meat has been available to non-vegans and vegetarians in the past, although the organisation has had a policy of not serving fish.

Watson says he and members of the society are concerned that "some 50 per cent of fish taken from the sea is utilised as food for farm animals".

Fishmeal is used to raise chickens, cows, pigs, and salmon. Large quantities of tuna are fed to domestic cats.

"With our oceans dying, with numerous fish species on the brink of extinction, with the proliferation of PCBs, mercury, and other heavy metals polluting the world's fish, it is time for humanity to question this horrendous destruction," Watson says. The Sea Shepherd crew intends to exemplify this concern by adopting an exclusively vegan diet for its campaigns.

While the Japanese maintain they are taking a self-imposed quota of 440 minke whales under the scientific research provisions of the International Whaling Commission regulations, Watson calls their whaling activities illegal.

"These whalers will be breaking laws that govern whaling by the International Whaling Commission, International Laws of the Sea, Antarctic Environmental Protection Act, The Convention of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, and The World Charter for Nature," he says.

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