The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a sea-faring radical environmental group known for using guerilla tactics to disable Japanese whaling vessels in Antarctica, has once again had its registration revoked. Their craft, a 180-foot steel-hulled enforecement ship christened the Farley Mowat, is now officially a pirate vessel:
As Farley Mowat Captain Paul Watson told indymedia.org, "I am proud to add my name to the long list of honourable and noble pirates like Sir Francis Drake, John Paul Jones and Jean LaFitte. To that end we have our own version of the Pretty Red or Joli Rouge and it is the crossed shepherd's staff and Neptune's trident under a human skull engraved with the yin and yang of a dolphin and a whale. If they want us to be pirates then we will be damn pirates but we will not abandon the whales to the agony and misery of the harpoons without a fight. We are pirates of compassion in pursuit of pirates of profit."
Sea Shepherd has sunk ten "pirate whaling" ships since 1979, but claims that no individuals have been injured.
To read more about the global moratorium on whaling, click here.