The intention of the Japanese whalers is to commit criminal acts of poaching against protected Minke whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in defiance of the International ban on commercial whaling, in defiance of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, in defiance of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), in defiance of the International Court of Justice, in defiance of the Australian Federal Court and in defiance of world opinion and international law.

The reason that Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is not now pursuing the Japanese whaling fleet is simple.

Sea Shepherd cannot match the surveillance and military technology of the Japanese government and their fleet of criminal poachers.

The whalers have real time Sat-Surveillance – Sea Shepherd does not.

The whalers have $50 million U.S. in subsidies from their government.

The whalers have military backing.

The whalers have the full backing of their government because the whaling fleet is owned by the Japanese government. They can inflict violence without repercussions. When we defend ourselves non-violently, there are severe repercussions.

Sea Shepherd does not have the backing of any government in opposing illegal Japanese whaling operations in the Southern Ocean.

Sea Shepherd operates within the boundaries of practicality.

Last year Sea Shepherd could find the whaling fleet but could not close in because Japanese real time sat-technology can tell them exactly where Sea Shepherd ships are at all times. We have no way to compete with that. This is government military level technology completely unavailable to us.

Japan also passed new anti-terrorism laws specifically to stop Sea Shepherd and these laws would have allowed the use of lethal force and would allow severe punishments to our crews.

In other words, the world changed and not in favor of the whales or us.

Last year we were criticized by some former supporters and crew for not finding them when the reality is that we could not possibly engage them.

Now we are being criticized by the same few people for not sending our ships south this season. Criticized for sending them and not finding them last year and criticized for not sending ships this year.

To continue would be foolish. We would spend a few million dollars and many months only to have another failure to engage, and if we did by some miracle encounter the fleet, we would be subject to lethal force without support from our own cowardly governments.

In short, Sea Shepherd went as far as we could possibly go with the resources we had within a very hostile environment against an extremely powerful and ruthless government.

On the positive side, we accomplished a great deal.

Humpbacks and Fins are now off the kill list.

The Minke whale kills have been reduced to 333 from 935.

Sea Shepherd cost the Japanese government over 100 million dollars in losses.

The Japanese government are now spending an obscene amount of money to keep their outlaw fleet afloat.

Sea Shepherd exposed Japan’s illegal activities in the Southern Ocean to the entire world through Whale Wars.

Sea Shepherd contributed greatly towards securing evidence that helped to convince the International Court of Justice to condemn Japanese so called scientific whaling as bogus and unlawful.

Sea Shepherd humiliated the Japanese government for years.

And these achievements did not happen without cost.

Japanese legal assaults cost Sea Shepherd USA millions of dollars.

My personal freedom to travel was taken away and five years later I still cannot travel abroad.

Sea Shepherd went as far as we could and pushed the envelope as much as we could, more so than any other group or government. We went as far as it was possible to go with the resources available to us.