Sea Shepherd takes a new tack, suing Japanese whalers for ramming its vessel

[Redfairen]

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, legendary for its high-seas disruptions of whaling operations, filed a federal lawsuit in Portland last week that accuses Japanese whalers of terrorizing one of the society's crews in January 2010.

The complaint, filed on Thursday, accuses the crew of the Shonan Maru No. 2, owned by Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd., of ramming Sea Shepherd's high-speed vessel Ady Gil on Jan. 6, 2010. The much larger Japanese vessel, equipped with harpoons, sliced the Ady Gil in half, forcing crew members to scramble for their lives, the suit alleges.

"At the time of the ramming, defendants' crewmembers ignored plaintiff's mayday calls and instead shot the crew on board the Ady Gil with high-pressure water cannons," according to the suit. "At least one person on board the Ady Gil was injured."

The anti-whaling group's lawsuit names as defendants Kyodo Senpaku and the Institute of Cetacean Research, a Japanese research foundation known as the ICR. They seek $3 million in damages for the loss of the Ady Gil.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/02/portland_lawsuit_sea_shepherd.html#incart_most-comments

[HooptieWagon]

1. That won't get far.

Video I saw of the incident clearly showed the Sea Shepard vessel turning into the Japanese whaling ship and ramming it.