No, not deliberately hurting human beings, just causing a bunch of them to lose their only source of income to their families, wreck any chances of them getting it back, leave them in the middle of a huge and f**king cold body of water, and b*****dizing the legacy of a truly great man. No, people harmed by this AT ALL.

I don't think they sink a ship and leave the crew there.

So when a ship sinks, nobody ever gets left behind? There are almost always casualties. Maybe this time they were lucky, but ramming a ship isn't exactly a good way to keep people alive.

It's really unfortunate that activists must resort to this to be able to get people to listen. The way the laws are set up for them to do anything legally (ie. petitions) never works, there are always loopholes. The only way anyone will listen or pay attention is to destroy the ships, the factories, the farms, and the labs.

I normally frown on activist hijinks, but there are a lot of countries that need to rethink their paper-thin arguments for whaling, and while we're at it, fin soup, tiger livers, rhino-horns, and all that superstitious "male-enhancement" snake-oil, animal-trade nonsense. Feeding people is one thing. If your society is selling science, then show it.

i've been watching these jerks on discovery (they have their own show - whale wars) and i'm siding with the whalers.
they chase and harass the whale fleet and factory ship - this is a total of 5 ships. just five. there aren't huge fleets out roaming the seas or we'd see them taking on other targets. they don't. it's always the same boats. they are all marked on the sides with the word research and they do in fact do some research on the whales. they have a limit as to how many they can take (which so far they don't seem to be exceeding) AND they don't waste the remaining meat - which looks freaking delicious btw. it gets butchered up and it feeds a LOT of people.

the crew of the steve irwin on the other hand engages in piracy, pure and simple. they injured one of their own crew when they were going to board a ship one night and cut it's radio lines, they've illegally boarded boats and are wanted for piracy. now they are on tape actually ramming a whale boat. they have an inexperienced crew and have had many narrow misses where they could've been killed or seriously injured themselves or others. and don't even get me started on their leaders alleged gun shot incident - so obviously staged it wasn't even funny.

when you're such a bunch of wingnuts that even greenpeace won't associate with you - that says a lot.

[editing mine]

I've never watched the show, but I have a hard time supporting these "activists." I'm not a huge advocate of whaling, but if it feeds a whole community for a winter... why not? I'm not a huge fan of whale, but it is quite nutritious, lots of vitamins and minerals and whatnot.I agree that all research should be research, but what's wrong with using leftover research matter as food? I agree that so much animal and parts trafficking ought to be stopped, but making it illegal usually just means people will be sneakier.

I disagree. This is the "age of the internet" and simple videos of such "evils" will do the trick. Nobody needs to threaten the lives of more humans and animals to get points like this across. We have enough war and violence as it is, and I cannot support anyone who advocates more.

In addition, these so-called environmentalists clearly aren't thinking about the damage to the environment destroying ships (or labs or farms etc) will create.

Or maybe leaking chemicals and hydrocarbons into the sea, further killing more flora and fauna, is permissible to them if it gets their point across? If they think so, IMO it completely discredits them.

I agree. Those whalers have families to feed!

(No sarcasm.)

Uh, no, there are never casualties. The only ships the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has sunk as part of its enforcement efforts have been whalers that were DOCKED IN PORT. When they sunk half of Iceland's whaling fleet, they left one ship alone because there was a night watchman snoozing on it, and they didn't want him to die.

Ramming those folks doesn't sink them, it just guarantees publicity.

Of course, whether on the ice floes protecting seal pups from being flayed alive, or while chasing Japanese whalers, or in various other endeavors, governments and industry folks have certainly physically attacked and injured Sea Shepherd crew members.

sure, let's all go whaling...

Until, that is, there on the verge of extinction...

Aw, hell... screw it, let's just kill em all.

Wow... how the needs of people have changed over the years.
Use to be whalers hunted a couple of animals a year, in crude, small ships without a motor or a mechanical harpoon and that was enough to feed their entire family and sustain a village for a number of months.
I guess we just eat more now, don't we?

Now the research. What research, may I ask, is preformed on whales which requires them to be DEAD? What don't we know about whales' bodies already after years and years of hunting them? What good will it do us or the whales to 'research' them even further?
Screw that as an excuse...

God, I wish aliens would do the same thing to some people. Oh, but for research purposes.

Just so you know, I don't agree with sinking boats, but I do agree with erasing whaling as a whole.