Paul Watson's whale war

For more than 120 days, the environmentalist Paul Watson has sat in a remote jail cell in the southwest corner of Greenland. He faces extradition to Japan.

So what? He could spend the rest of his life in jail there, for the crime of saving whales. Japanese diplomatic sources think Watson will be extradited, which his lawyer fears would be a death sentence for the 73-year-old.

Watson faces a 15-year sentence for

– damaging a Japanese whaling ship, the Shonan Maru 2, in the Southern Ocean;

– injuring a Japanese crew member with a stinkbomb; and

– trespassing on the ship.

His team believes that video footage of the incidents, which happened in 2010, exonerates him.

Watson v Japan. The lifelong campaigner, a founding member of Greenpeace and star of the TV show Whale Wars, has become notorious for his anti-whaling methods. He rams boats with his own ragtag fleet, which he once claimed was the largest non-government navy in the world.

Watson was arrested in Greenland in July while en route to intercept Japan’s new whaling vessel: the Kangei Maru. His team told Tortoise that the $47 million ship, funded by loans and taxpayer money, explains the timing of his arrest. The Kangei Maru

– can haul 70-ton fin whales, the second largest animal on the planet;

– includes a hanger for a large drone to help the crew spot whales at a distance;

– has a range of 7,000 nautical miles, enough to get to the Southern Ocean.

In 1986 the International Whaling Commission (IWC) put a pause on commercial whaling, but Japan was allowed to continue hunting the cetaceans as scientific “research”. The country sold the byproduct – whale meat served grilled, fried and raw – on the domestic market.

In 2014 the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan could no longer justify the deaths of whales in the Antarctic as research. Four years later Japan left the IWC, which meant the country could only whale in its own seas. The owner of the Kangei Maru has denied speculation that the ship will be used to return whalers to the richer waters of the Southern Ocean.

No meat, no meal. Japan’s vow to continue hunting is in defiance of a shrinking market: the country eats less than 1 per cent of the whale meat it did in the 1960s. But the activist Ren Yabuki thinks the government has reasoned that if it concedes on whaling, tuna could be next.

Red alert. Watson’s arrest was prompted by an Interpol notice that the Japanese first requested in 2012, then raised again in 2023. But a source with knowledge of Interpol said Denmark didn’t have to act on the red notice when the activist stopped in Greenland. So why did it?

Keeping up relations. Last year Denmark and Japan formally deepened their strategic partnership, while trade between the two countries has grown in both directions. Denmark’s main export products to Japan are medicines and pig meat. Japan’s are cars and ships.

Domestic pressures. Every year the Faroe Islands – part of the Kingdom of Denmark – herd and butcher hundreds of pilot whales and dolphins in shallow waters as part of an ancient tradition called the grindadráp. Omar Todd, head of the Paul Watson Foundation, claimed “it was the Faroese that alerted the Danes” that Watson was heading towards Greenland.

Le sauveur? Watson may yet be granted asylum by France, where he was living at the time of his arrest. He has the 90-year-old Brigitte Bardot on his side, and Emmanuel Macron has urged Danish authorities not to extradite him.

That said… As much as whaling offends modern sensibilities, humans are hunting a fraction of the number slaughtered at the peak of whaling in the 1960s.

What’s more… No less dangerous to whales: noise.

Further listening: Operation Asshole: Paul Watson’s Whale War

Photo credit: Mirco Taliercio / laif / Camera Press