The Whaling Season by Kieran Mulvaney, Island Press, $26, ISBN 1559639784 Reviewed by John Bonner
WHEN Greenpeace sent anti-whaling expeditions to the Antarctic to confront the Japanese fleet, the chances of seriously disrupting the slaughter were as flimsy as the inflatable boats the crew tried to interpose between the harpooners and their prey. Even trying to locate the whaling ships in the vastness of the Southern Ocean was a huge challenge. And if, through luck as much as judgement, they did find the fleets, the whalers had the power to sail quickly out of radar range of the sluggish ocean-going Greenpeace tug known by its crew as the Black Pig.
Yet the four trips made by Greenpeace from 1991 to 2001 were still successful. Donors to the charity admired the courage shown by expedition members in facing the hazards of icebergs, mountainous seas and the water cannons used by the whaling fleet crews. Also, the campaigns helped harden the resolve of anti-whaling countries to declare the Southern Ocean a sanctuary 鈥� where commercial whaling has been banned since 1994.
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Mulvaney was a senior member of the first three trips and, after leaving Greenpeace during the mid 1990s, was persuaded back to lead the last expedition. He vividly describes the tension, excitement and long periods of boredom during each two to three-month journey. He also gives an insider鈥檚 account of the grubby political chicanery used by the whaling nations 鈥� essentially Japan and Norway 鈥� to continue whaling for so-called 鈥渞esearch鈥� purposes.
The international moratorium on commercial whaling was declared in 1982, but it is shocking to realise that more whales are being killed now than before. The author maintains that the Japanese government spends a fortune propping up an industry that no longer has a market for its products. Few of Japan鈥檚 younger citizens, those aged less than 50, would contemplate eating whale meat and so much of the catch remains unsold. Mulvaney is optimistic that we are witnessing 鈥渢he last defiant death throes before commercial whaling breathes its last and, unmourned and unloved, finally passes away鈥�.