This aint' gonna happen:

Sea Shepherd Sets Conditions for Canada to Release seized Ship

Sea Shepherd Supporter | 26.04.2008 12:30 | Ocean Defence | World

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society today has set the conditions for the Canadian government to release the Farley Mowat. The 657 ton Farley Mowat was taken by armed force by agents acting under the direction of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in waters outside the Canadian twelve mile territorial limit. At no time did the Farley Mowat, a Dutch registered yacht, ever enter the twelve mile territorial limit. Therefore the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society considers this action to be an act of high seas piracy.

In addition to seizing the ship and terrorizing crewmembers on board with firearms and excessive force, the agents acting like pirates seized personal property of crewmembers who were never charged with any offense by the government of Canada. It is the opinion of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society that when armed men board a ship at sea in international waters and steal property at gunpoint that such an act can be legitimately defined as piracy.

Also on the newswire: Canada To Charge Sea Shepherd Crew For Documenting Seal Hunt | Sea Shepherd Crew Attacked By Mob Of Seal Hunters | Interview With Captain Onboard Sea Shepherd Ship On Current Seal Hunt | Canadian Coast Guard Rams Sea Shepherd Ship (twice) | Sea Shepherd Moves In On Canadian Seal Slaughter

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society demands the release of the Farley Mowat under the following conditions:

• The Society will not post a ransom or bond on the ship.
• The Society demands the return of the ship in the condition it was seized.
• The Society demands compensation for the loss of the vessel while under seizure.
• The Society demands the dropping of charges against the Captain and First Officer of the Farley Mowat.
• The Society demands an official apology from Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn.

These are the five conditions that the Society demands for the release of the ship. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is prepared to wait for a verdict in the case against Captain Alex Cornelissen of the Netherlands and First Officer Peter Hammarstedt of Sweden. The Society is confident that the evidence will exonerate both men of the ridiculous charges brought against them by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Once an acquittal is granted against both men, the Society will launch a law suit against the government of Canada for damages to the ship during the time it is held by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Such damages will be for physical damage caused deliberately and by neglect by the government and for loss of usage during the time of seizure. The Society will also ask for punitive damages for high seas piracy. If in the unlikely event that the two accused are convicted, the Society will request an appeal and will hold the same conditions for release of the vessel. The Society will not under any circumstances pay for berthage or maintenance costs while the ship is being illegally detained by Canadian authorities.

"The actions of the Canadian government were excessive to say the least," said Captain Paul Watson. "Two of our officers have been arrested, our crew robbed at gunpoint, our ship seized in international waters and torn apart by authorities looking for videotapes and digital images of seals being killed. When did a camera become an instrument of terrorism? When did taking pictures of an atrocity become a crime? The evidence will demonstrate that not only was the Farley Mowat outside of Canadian waters at all times but that the Farley Mowat and her crew never once approached dangerously close to any sealing boats. The evidence will show that the sealing boats approached the Farley Mowat. I am warning the government right now, don’t you dare destroy any of the evidence that you have seized. You have our GPS documentation and you have our video and pictures and we demand that you produce this evidence in court. We intend to see you in court and we intend to see that justice prevails and that this government sanctioned act of high seas piracy is exposed."

Captain Alex Cornelissen and First Officer Peter Hammarstedt have been deported to the Netherlands and to Sweden and told not to return to Canada. This makes it difficult for them to appear for trial which leads the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to believe that perhaps the government is trying to force them to jump bail by making it impossible for them to return to court. "This case is like a sealed box of rotten fish that is about to be opened and the stench will be tremendous when the decaying fish see the light of day. The government of Canada will have to clean up the mess".

The eco-terrorist activities of the Sea Shepherd Society have been made public and they're in no position to be making demands...

Comments (5)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by WL Mackenzie Redux, April 30, 2008

I'm thinkin' this is a time for that "accident" to happen that will send the FM to the bottom of Sydney harbour.

Then it should be the Canadian people "demanding" the Sea Shepherd society compensate us for salvaging the hulk before it causes environmental damage and the trouble of chopping it up to recycle the scarp metal so it leaves a neutral carbon footprint...pay us for disposing of your trashed polluting hulk you polluting turd balls !

...
written by bonnie jay, May 02, 2008

The millions Ottawa spends subsidizing the seal hunt
By Murray Teitel

Whether you think killing seals is a bad thing or a good thing, whether you think it barbaric or humane, you should oppose Canada’s annual seal hunt.

According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) the justification for the hunt is to provide economic opportunities for Canada’s coastal communities. Last year, according to its Web site, this entire economic opportunity amounted to $12-million, the value of all seal pelts landed. They fetched on average $52 a pelt. According to evidence given to Parliament’s standing committee on fisheries and oceans on Nov. 6, 2006, half of that is eaten up by expenses, so we are talking, at most, $6-million that flowed to the sealers themselves: one-tenth of 1% of Newfoundland’s GDP. (This year it will be even less, because pelts of three to four week old “beaters” that make up 95% of the catch are selling for between $6 and $33.)

This $6-million costs Canadians at least 10 times as much and does so year after year. First of all, there is the cost of deploying the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) to the seal hunt for seven weeks each year. Last year it involved 10 vessels, many of them icebreakers, helicopters and patrol planes. Nobody in government knows, even less wants to know, what this costs. DFO claims it costs nothing because the boats and aircraft are owned and the crews are on salary. Does it cost nothing to put out fires in Toronto because it owns the trucks and firefighters aren’t on piecework? Toronto hires firefighters and buys trucks based on the anticipated number and severity of fires. A significant part of what CCG does is rescue sealers. Some 24% of its 2003 fishing vessel rescues derived from this hunt. Without it, CCG’s annual budget could be significantly reduced. One hunt-deployed icebreaker, the Amundsen, costs $50,000 per day to operate in winter. Given DFO’s lack of transparency, one can only estimate the annual CCG cost attributable to the hunt at $5-million.

Secondly, every year some disaster occurs. Last year, it was heavy ice that trapped sealers for days on end. Some even ran out of cigarettes! DFO calculated the extra CCG costs due to heavy ice at $3.41-million. It also paid $7.9-million to owners of boats damaged by ice. This year, it is the drowning of four sealers and the near drowning of two while being rescued by CCG. This resulted in the cost of an unsuccessful week-long 2,800 nautical square mile search for one of the drowned and his boat involving patrol planes, helicopters and three icebreakers. The inevitable lawsuits and legal bills will easily cost more than $6-million.

Thirdly, millions are spent every year trying to counter bans on the importation of seal products. Our NAFTA partners and four European countries have imposed bans. Four countries have announced intentions to do so. Italy and Luxembourg have suspended imports. The European Parliament resolved to impose an EU-wide ban. The Council of Europe has called on its 46 members to do so.

Canada has taken Holland and Belgium to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Aside form being terribly expensive, it jeopardizes a relationship with two countries with which Canada has a trade surplus. $5.2-million of raw seal products constitutes less than 1/1,000 of what we export to Europe.

The DFO, since at least 2003, has been flying high-level delegations to Europe to argue against the bans. Last year, there were at least six such junkets. For example, on March 27, 2007, a 17-person delegation was dispatched to the British Parliament for a meeting attended by only five British MPs. Last month, seven Canadians, including Loyola Sullivan, ambassador for fisheries conservation, the Premier of Nunavut and a Newfoundland Cabinet minister flew to four European capitals for a week.

Unfortunately, they seem to use a travel agent who excels at finding the most expensive fares available. When Mr.

...
written by starbird, May 02, 2008

Sullivan flew on seal business to five European capitals this January, the airfare alone was $10,270.80. The DFO’s Kevin Stringer flew to Paris for $4,459.65 on Sept. 5, 2007. Of course, this is nothing compared with the $16,025.25 spent on airfare to Australia and New Zealand by the DFO’s director general of economic analysis whom I wish would do an economic analysis of his own expense accounts. With hotels, wines, meals and support staff, this adds up.

They have as much chance of stemming this tide as Germany did of stopping the Allies after D Day. The battle is lost. But because of ideological fanaticism they keep fighting, secure in the delusion that the Canadian taxpayer, like the cod, is an inexhaustible resource that will forever fund this foolishness that only benefits the high-end European tourism industry.

Fourthly, there is the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) led boycott that is largely responsible for the inflation adjusted $465-million drop in the value of Canadian exports of snow crabs — the main seafood export to the United States from Canada’s sealing provinces — since April, 2005. The value of 2007 snow crab exports is 44% lower than it was in 2004, the year prior to the boycott.

HSUS has to date persuaded almost 3,600 U.S. businesses to participate, including heavy hitters Publix (annual sales $24-billion), Whole Foods ($7-billion), WinCo Foods, Lowe’s Foods, Harris Teeter ($3-billion each) and smaller, seafood-driven ones like Legal Sea Foods ($400-million). Sealing creates less than 1% of the value of the sealing provinces’ fishery. Sacrifice 99% for the sake of 1%. Now there’s a business plan!

Finally, there is the cost of the DFO seal-hunt bureaucracy, which alone has to cost more than the sealers earn: license issuers, accountants, typists, file clerks, inspectors, quota setters, regulation drafters, “scientists,” “statisticians,” “economic analysts,” speech writers, media relations officers, anti-boycott propagandists, writers of replies to angry letters, arrangers of tours of European journalists (when the seal hunt is not taking place), all in the service of what DFO says is 5,000 to 6,000 (more like 2,000, I believe) people averaging $1,000 a year from killing 275,000 seals. There is a conflict of interest in the DFO having jurisdiction over the Coast Guard. If it were controlled by the Minister of Defence, he’d immediately see that for what he is spending on the seal hunt, he could outfit an artillery regiment.

Enough already. This is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. And the sealers? Sealers should prefer these monies be used to train them for jobs in the 21st-century economy, rather than to preserve them as relics of a hunter/gatherer one.

...
written by starbird, May 02, 2008

You are a turd ball and you do not know anything regarding the Sea Shepherd and it's protection of marine life. That's what make you a liar AND a turd ball, slim bucket, asshole.

Why don't you try telling the truth, it's much more interesting than the crap you make up.

...
written by Richard Evans, May 02, 2008

bonnie jay;

Looks like those costs, if they're legit are a direct result of the terrorist activities of folks like the Sea Shepheard Society. If you nature-nazis weren't out causing trouble, the CCG wouldn't have to be out providing security...

"You are a turd ball and you do not know anything regarding the Sea Shepherd and it's protection of marine life. That's what make you a liar AND a turd ball, slim bucket, asshole.

Why don't you try telling the truth, it's much more interesting than the crap you make up."

Truth? You mean like this:

“There’s nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win. Then you write the history.”(#)

Statement by Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society a few years ago. In todays news via Tim Blair:

Hardline anti-whaling activists are threatening to sacrifice their ship in Antarctic waters by ramming a Japanese whaler …

[Captain Paul] Watson said his boat, currently north of the Balleny Islands, west of the Ross Sea, was now seen as a pirate vessel, and he would rather lose it in defence of whales than to bureaucrats.

He intends to take drastic action, probably in the next 24 hours, to slam his vessel into the Nisshin Maru’s slipway, preventing it from hunting more whales. (#)

Later:

Anti-whaling activists say one of their vessels and a Japanese whaling ship have collided near the Ross Sea, sparking a distress call from the Japanese crew.

A statement from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said the whaling vessel, the Kaiko Maru, issued the distress call, which the group had acknowledged, about 3.20pm today. (#)

It is good to keep these guys on the radar screen as they’ll be out by our ice-flows come springtime “peacefully” protesting the seal hunt. As an aside, Green Party leader Elizabeth May was an adviser to these kooks but to her credit (I guess) she resigned after Paul Watson endorsed assassination as a means to save animal life.

Sorry "starbird" but your friends are terrorists and that's the truth...

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Add Comment