News / Skipper: time’s up for the Faroese grind
A SHIP owned by marine conservation activists Sea Shepherd has docked in Shetland for a stop-over ahead of their latest anti-whaling operation in the Faroe Islands.
The organisation’s 56m long MY Sam Simon – a former Japanese weather survey ship named after the late Simpsons creator who donated the £1 million to buy the vessel – is berthed at the east of Gremista in Lerwick until Saturday.
The crew of 24 international volunteers are taking a breather after travelling from Germany before heading to Faroe to undertake Operation Sleppid Grindini alongside two other Sea Shepherd craft.
The boats, working alongside 50 to 60 activists on land, aim to deter islanders from taking part in the killing of pilot whales in the centuries-old practice called the grind.
Speaking to Shetland News aboard the boat on Thursday, Sam Simon’s captain Lockhart MacLean said the grind is a “cultural tradition that doesn’t belong in the 21st century”.
The assembled crew hope their presence, as well as the use of devices in the water to deter whales from entering slaughter areas, will prevent any killings.
Sea Shepherd have been active in Faroe since 1985 and claim to have successfully stopped locals from killing pods of whales on a number of occasions.
“We’ve managed to block grinds while we’ve been there,” MacLean said.
“I think in our first campaign, no grinds were undertaken whilst we were there. It definitely causes disruption in their operations – and how far can you go?
“Well, the fact is, these are being carried out in shallow waters, so it’ll be a combination of a land team and ship operation.
“Our goal this year is to a have a big naval presence. Hopefully, because of the new laws that the Faroese are saying have come into effect [to restrict Sea Shepherd in the area], we’ll try to make more presence offshore, and hopefully the devices that we can put offshore can have an effect on the migrating pilot whales coming through the area.
“These are basically whales coming from the equator. They’re coming past the Faroes – they’re not residents there, which is a further argument against the grind. They’re a free moving species. It’s pretty sad.”
Sam Simon is large and fully equipped for its trip, with a kitchen (serving only vegan food) in close proximity to the likes of a media room, control room and staff lounge.
The boat is due to leave Shetland on Saturday morning to head north to an island group that McLean believes has a growing acceptance of their cause.
“There’s actually a pretty big anti-whaling sentiment over there, he said, “but there’s huge peer pressure as well. They are sort of closet anti-whalers.”
The captain, who lives on a solar and wind powered sailboat and regularly travels the globe, has been associated with Sea Shepherd for 16 years.
He was in Shetland when the organisation infamously berthed in Lerwick in 2011, only to be served with a lawsuit worth £736,000 in damages from a Maltese fishing company.
They issued the legal action over unlawfully caught endangered bluefin tuna that was cut loose from nets by the Sea Shepherd crew in 2010 – and this meant that a £520,000 bond had to paid into court to release its Steve Irwin vessel from Lerwick after a two week stay.
MacLean, however, confirmed that the UK Supreme Court ruled in favour of Sea Shepherd in March this year, with the bond returned and legal costs covered.
“I’m very much an anti-whaling campaigner from Vancouver in Canada,” he explained.
“In my country we had a traditional hunt, so the whaling issue has been close to my heart.
“But when you see people carrying out a so called traditional hunt using an anti-tank gun, or a fishing trawler or pick-up trucks to take whales up on the beach, for me, it’s no longer traditional.
“So I’m categorically against the excuse that traditional hunting is a legitimate reason to carry out these slaughters.
“There’s a lot of cultural traditions that don’t belong in the 21st century, and the grind is one of them.”
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