The bow of the Ady Gil was sheared off in a collision with a Japanese whaling vessel. It is taking on water, but all crew members have been rescued.

It’s not fair, says anti-whaling person Paul Watson, from the Steve Irwin mother ship, ‘this seriously escalates the whole situation.’

Oh dear.

Of course the protest vessel was quietly minding its own business at the time …  No?

Actually, the Ady Gil was launching projectiles at the Nisshin Maru and attempting to entangle its propellers with rope.

What sort of projectiles? By the protestors own admission, some of them were chemical containing projectiles:

Earlier the campaigners – who are trying to stop Japan’s whaling fleet – said they threw chemicals onto the whaling boat to prevent it being used.

So we have a high speed anti-whaling vessel circling a commercial ship while throwing out ropes to entangle its propellors and tossing chemicals on to its decks, when there is a collision. Whose fault is this?

The Japanese are certainly not in any doubt.

Japan’s Fisheries Agency said:

“These acts of sabotage that threaten our country’s whaling ships and crew were extremely dangerous. It is totally unforgivable.”

Apart from the unforgiveable part – nothing is unforgiveable – I agree. Not only that the protestors are to blame, but that the anti-whaling protest is hypocritical.

There is no shortage of Minke whales – in fact they reduce the krill vailable for other endangered species.

Whales have similar intelligence to other grazing animals like cows.

A modern harpoon kills quickly, and no more painfully than halal methods of killing sheep, goats and cattle.

So if the protestors eat beef, what basis do they have for complaint about Japan’s carefully managed whale harvest?

Could it be racism? Cultural insensitivity? Or just plain old hypocrisy?

Update:

Who rammed who?

The Ady Gil is a much faster, smaller, more nimble boat. If they didn’t deliberately ram the Japanese ship, they certainly put themselves in its way.