Whale Wars Team - Determination without Intelligence; Who really faces extinction, the Japanese or the Whales?

What exactly is the Sea Sheppard crew trying to accomplish, and how? The team atrociously ineffective,  and have mis-diagnosed Japanese motivation. The biggest success: 4 seasons on TV.

Step 1 - Find the mother ship of the Japanese Whaling fleet...
Step 2 - Uhhh.. let's spend four seasons on TV trying to figure that out

Maybe the best thing the crew has done is spread awareness, but as far as achieving the proclaimed daily goals, the half-wits put show the world a tactical skill set no better than a high-speed canine chasing a car. At least dogs seem interested only in the chase, but whale warriors, in pursuit of a greater goal - stop the Nissin maru - expose their canine-like ineptitude once the chase is over, and the time for step two arrives.

I just watched an episode where the smaller, faster boat found the Nissin, but could not paralyze the floating whale processor alone. The goal of the small ship: slow the Nissin, until backup can arrive. The problems: the Nissin can navigate through ice-fields, the small boat cannot without titanic-like results. Also, the backup boat boat (the Bob Barker) is too slow to arrive within range before the Nissin hits the ice, ostensibly escaping into the Antarctic like those pesky needles who find refuge from human sight in hay stacks.

Alright, the small ship is the reconnaissance boat, fast enough to track the Nissin Maru, relaying the location back to the other two Whale-defending boats. In four seasons, the good guys developed only one way to track the Japanese once found, follow them. If the Japanese escape before the Bob Barker arrives, the needle goes back into the haystack.

As impressive as mankind's technological evolution has been, the anti-whalers are left with surprisingly primitive tracking abilities. The flurry of obstacles facing our Whale heros does squeeze out every possible ounce of suspense to otherwise bland programming, but the disappointing results make the multi-million dollar effort seem like a whale of a waste.

Well, viewers seem sufficiently content just watching two boats play paintball, but why not pack one of those projectiles with a tracking device. The boats even collide at times; I'd say there is ample opportunity to attach a surreptitious tracking devise to the evil Nissin Maru.

Better yet, the boat must go to port, so why not attack when the vessel is at a standstill. If blowing up the propeller is not inline with the pursuit of pacifism, at least make the vessel more track-able. What about attacking the meat processing functionality. ANY preemptive strike is sure to be more effective. Instead, our heroes wait until whaling practice is well underway before embarking on the mission to annoy Japanese away from the whales.

The Nissin does not slay whales, only processing them, so while the whale war is engaged, the harpoon ships freely roam about, slaughtering the pacifist movement, one whale at a time.

However, I must wonder what motivates the Japanese... Whale meat is contaminated with mercury, and the Japanese government subsidizes private whaling in the Antarctic, just to keep the industry economically sustainable. Despite falling dramatically short of its whaling quota, there was no reported spike in the price of whale meat, normally expected with a supply shortage. So, either the reported quota was misleading, or the biggest purchaser of whale meat is the Japanese government, who is best equipped to mitigate the pricing effects of supply shortages.

Combine those inferences with the well-known Japanese  struggle to maintain its food supply, and I'm led to believe that the whaling practice may be one the Japanese rely on to reduce hunger. Why else would Japanese fisheries remain adamant about procuring whale meat, despite its un-profitability, health concerns, lacking world market, and negative world sentiment.

The Japanese have no food. We are a pampered society, who lives to eat, so we can hardly empathize with starving nations, especially those like Japan who do not have the typical complexion of a starving country, as its technology and industry mask the difficult truth. Even milk is often considered a luxury in Japan, and school children consume the mercury-riddled whale meat without much alternative. The Japanese population is shrinking as deaths continually outpace births. Japanese families avoid child rearing, resulting from the concern with providing children a healthy environment.

So I ask, who is in more danger of extinction, the Japanese or the whales?


These are all thoughts of Tony Salloum, written, un-edited. No proof reading before posting... just free flowing thoughts...