Sea Shepherd Ship Boarded by Australian Police; Videos and Logs Seized

Australian police boarded the Sea Shepherd ship immediately after it docked in Hobart, Tasmania, yesterday and proceeded to seize all Sea Shepherd's video footage of this year's anti-whaling campaign--including footage of the clashes between the Japanese whalers and Sea Shepherd and footage of the killing of a whale (to be aired on the Animal Planet series Whale Wars)--as well as other materials.

According to Sea Shepherd,

The warrant authorized the seizing of "all edited and raw video footage, all edited and raw audio recordings, all still photographs, producer's notes, interview transcripts, production meeting minutes, post production meeting minutes as well as the ship's log books, global positioning system records, automatic radar plotting aid, purchase records, receipts, financial transaction records, voyage information and navigational plotted charts."

-Read on after the jump for more details of what's happening (or what we know so far anyway)-

From the Tasmanian newspaper The Mercury:

Tasmanian crew member Andrew Perry said the video footage was harrowing because the Japanese whalers had become more brazen by the end of the hunting season and for the first time slaughtered a whale in full view of the Steve Irwin.

Mr Perry said the footage, taken from the ship's helicopter, showed a whaler's explosive-tipped harpoon piercing a whale. "The whale was then pulled alongside the (Japanese) boat and it was shot seven times with a shotgun."

He said the helicopter crew, filming for TV documentary show Animal Planet, then saw the whale thrashing and could hear it screaming.

Mr Perry said the slaughter took more than 20 minutes. "It was an incredibly distressing thing to behold," he said. "We have never been able to get footage like that before. It's going to be damning."

Mr Perry, of Hobart, said one of the reasons the Steve Irwin had concluded the campaign and returned to Hobart was because they had heard the Japanese had deployed a security vessel to track down the activists and seize the footage. "We heard they had a commando boarding team whose objective was to find us and board us," he said.

An updated article from this same Australian newspaper--titled "Who called the cops?"--notes that the Australian government is saying little, so far, about the matter. Somebody over there has something to say though:

Leader of the Australian Greens Bob Brown has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd calling for an immediate explanation as to how the raid could be in the nation's interest.

"On the face of it, this is outrageous behaviour by the Australian Government to secure favour from the Japanese authorities," Senator Brown said.

"And if it wasn't, what on earth is the Australian Federal Police up to?"

I'll finish up by just letting the Sea Shepherds speak for themselves (see Sea Shepherd's full response to and description of the events here):

"It's a very one-sided affair," continued Captain Watson. "The Japanese ships have not been boarded by the Australian Federal Police; they have not had their video and navigational data confiscated. They have not been questioned nor will they be, yet they violently attacked my ship and crew in the Southern Ocean. Does the law only go to bat for those who destroy nature's creation? Are we about to see the ultimate kangaroo court where Sea Shepherd will be legally crucified because the Australian government has not lived up to their promise of taking the whale killers to court? The truth is that we would not have to be in the Southern Ocean defending the whales if the governments of the world would simply enforce the international conservation treaties they once so proudly signed into law. Without enforcement there is no law - just ecological anarchy."

Captain Watson said he had no complaints about the Australian Federal Police.

"They were very professional and polite and they were doing their job in carrying out the orders of the government."

"We have quite the year ahead of us," continued Captain Watson. "We need to repair damages to the Steve Irwin, we need to secure a second and faster vessel, and we need to be prepared to return to the Southern Ocean again at the end of the year to defend whales. If need be we will be in court to answer to charges of defending endangered whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and to this we proudly plead guilty."