4 - Wednesday, September 12, 1990 —- North Shore News War on driftnets [ yor may be too late Correction For Men & Women Focus on Fashion * EUROPEAN FACIALS September 12, 1990 « MANICURES, PEDICURES P= Co) ON BOARD the Sea Shep- herd — Dawn came grey ¢ WAXING, LASH TINTING ” and wet and cold. illustration incorrect Page 8 — the Children's 2 piece MAKE-UP © SUNTANNING The seas were running about six P) ‘ a Denim Set. Boys & Girls sizes 2-3x » SPECIALIZING IN IN = / will not be available. ¢ ACNE TREATMENTS 92 2-1 2 2 5 4 ~ Ya KE feet with foam breaking on their . « WRINKLE REDUCTION Page 9 — Baby Security Gate. - AND CONTROL 10-636 Clyde, West Vancouver crests. Everything was in relentless sickening motion. Not an especial- ¢ ACRYLIC NAILS (PARK ROYAL AREA) ly good day for a ramming. It was Aug. 13. By 0850 hours, Paul Watson had taken the helm, surrounded by Sea Shepherd Con- servation Society members dressed in flak jackets and wearing Kelvar battle helmets, just in case some- body on the boats we were about to ram got the bright idea of grabbing a gun and opening fire. Since I was there as a cor- respondent, columnist and televi- Bob Hunter ECOLOGIC sion reporter, I was carrying a video camera, still camera and hand-held tape recorder. That meant | opted to keep moving around the deck, the wheeJhouse and the bow. When I decided to climb out on the bow to film the ramming from a closer point of view, Watson in- sisted I'don body a‘mor. It felt silly at first, to say nothing of be- ing incredibly heavy and uncom- fortable. But once I was up on the bow, lashed to the anchor winch, cam- eras poised as we charged across the waves toward a driftnet boat, I felt a whole lot better about wearing a heavy metal jacket and a helmet. This is a bit like war, I mused. Certainly, Watson was treading a very fine line. Technically, since we were in international waters, anything goes. I could not help remembering the anger and indignance of Van- couverite David McTaggart when he was rammed by the French Navy on the high seas back in 1972. What Watson was intending here was a reversal of rolesona _ major scale. It would be the ecologists doing the ramming. Not that this was the first for him. He did ram the pirate whaler Sierra off the coast of Portugal in 1979. For the rest of us on board. however, this was a new experi- ence, The legitimacy of the tactic is wide open to criticism, of course. Watson takes the position, how- ever, that the Japanese, Taiwanese and North and South Koreans are involved in ecological vandalism ona colossal scale, and that they are carrying on the driftnet fishery with utter disregard for the long- term health of the eco-system. DRIFTNETS Pa an angle of about 30 degrees, aim- ing for the forward port section where the vessel’s crew were working, hauling in the nighi’s catch. The nets themselves are 50 incredibly heavy that they can be pulled in only by power blocks, and it was these mechanisms that Watson aimed to take out. His aim, { must say, was damn good. With a blast of the Sea Shep- herd’s horn to alert the Japanese fisherman to jump back out of the way, the great steel bludgeon on Watson’s bow rose on one wave and came down on another against the power blocks on the Shunyo Maru #8’s port side, smashing them like toys. Sparks flew in every direction, and the stench of hot metal was in the air, whether from the grinding of hulls together or electrical currents running out of control, it was im- possible to tell. Both ships staggered and seem- ed for a few seconds to be locked together before the Sea Shepherd broke free and surged ahead, leav- ing a shocked and dazed crew of Japanese behind — but nobody injured. Without pausing, Watson swung the wheel and aimed direct- ly for the next nearest driftnetter, the Ryoun Maru 46. Incredibly, the second vessel had not received a warning call from its crippled sister ship. The attack was identical. Coming in from the port stern, blasting the horn, smashing the power blocks, pulling away in a screeching cacophony of torn metal. Again, without waiting, Watson was in motion after a third target. By now, however, word had spread.The remaining four driftnet boats were dropping their nets and scattering. The Sea Shepherd went for the closest vessel, but it turned heel and sped away to the southwest, at which point Watson brought his own ship to a halt, sent a Zo- diac crew over the side to grab the abandoned net, and on signal, cut the tines so that the driftnet was pulled straight down toward the ocean bottom. ‘The rest of the day was spent in nou oursuit of the fleeing driftnet- 1er, But the driftnetter proved capable of moving nalf a knot faster than the Sea Shepherd and by the middle of the night, Aug. 14, Watson decided to give up the chase. His own engine was overheating badly. He nad succeeded in disabling two driftnet boats and sinking one vet. Che two crippled boats would presumably have to head back to Japan for repairs. As for Watson, the next stop was to head south for Honolulu to see if the Japanese planned to Sale ends Sept. 22/90 In the face of banditry —- how- lay charges, or whether the U.S. we oO ever much of it cloaks itself in Coast Guard would — in other | 118 - WEST 15th ST. technical legitimacy —- what kind words, to face the music, release “ NORTH VANCOUVER of response can there be except to footage of the encounter, and ; oO. 985-8291 either step aside and fet it happen leave the reporters to file their or decide to fight back? stories and columns. The first driftnet boat in our For me, what stood out most path happened to be the Shunyo Maru 48, a vessei almost exactly the same length as the Sea Sinep- herd, but a good deal lower in the water. Moving at a full 10 knots, Wat- son came up on the Japanese boat from the port stern, gliding in at was not the ramming but the fact that after nearly two weeks at sea, I have only seen four dolphins and glimpsed just three whales in the distance. | don’t need any statistics to tell me that the ocean is dying and very nearly dead. TEED . the paint and paper people @ ZZ f