Sea Shepherd Pulls Plug On Japan Whale Hunt

Activist group Sea Shepherd Tuesday pulled the plug on its annual campaign to disrupt Japanese whaling, saying it can no longer match the country's military and economic power

SYDNEY, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Aug, 2017 ) - Activist group Sea Shepherd Tuesday pulled the plug on its annual campaign to disrupt Japanese whaling, saying it can no longer match the country's military and economic power.

The organisation has waged a 12-year high-seas battle against whaling in the Southern Ocean, claiming success for saving thousands of the giant mammals and bringing the slaughter to world attention.

But the group's founder Paul Watson said his ships would not sail this year, with different strategies and tactics needed to hinder the hunt.

"What we discovered is that Japan is now employing military surveillance to watch Sea Shepherd ship movements in real-time by satellite and if they know where our ships are at any given moment, they can easily avoid us," he said in a statement.

"We cannot compete with their military-grade technology." He claimed that for the first time this year, Tokyo also planned to deploy its armed forces to defend the whalers, making it increasingly difficult to compete with "a major economic superpower".