US forces have been using unmanned aircraft or drones for some time in Afghanistan and especially on the Afghan-Pakistani border, both for surveillance and for targeted attacks. The drones have not earned too many friends in the process and have caused a number of spats between allied nations.

Now a group of radical anti-whaling activists have added the drone to their armory in their battle against Japan's annual whale hunt, which is now carried out in the name of research, as commercial whaling has been banned since 1986. Japan has been sending out its harpoon fleet to the Antarctic to kill hundreds of whales each year. But these whaling expeditions have been dogged by the protests of anti-whaling activists in increasing measure.

Drones for the Sea Shepherd

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is one such activist group which has not shied away from confrontations with Japan's harpoon fleet. Not long ago, a Sea Shepherd powerboat sank in a clash with whalers, and in another incident, a protester was arrested for boarding a Japanese ship. The harassment by Sea Shepherd even forced the Japanese to cut short their hunt last season, while Japan's coastguard has deployed an unspecified number of vessels to protect the whaling ships this year.

Sea Shepherd's answer has been to use drones donated by the Moran Office of Maritime and Port Security (MOMPS), a private US firm. These two drones, fitted with cameras and detection equipment, "can cover hundreds of miles," as Sea Shepherd spokesman Paul Watson told reporters. The drones had been developed by MOMPS to enforce international maritime and fisheries rules and have already been used to prevent bluefin tuna poaching off the coast of Libya.

Before a single whale has been caught

Sea Shepherd has sent three vessels to chase the current Japanese harpoon fleet. The activists' flagship, the Steve Irwin, was soon being tailed by three Japanese security vessels to prevent it from following the Nisshin Maru factory ship, the mother ship of the harpoon fleet. Nevertheless, the Sea Shepherd's other two vessels, Bob Barker and Brigitte Bardot, are said to be fast enough to chase the Japanese south.

The problem would have been to locate the Japanese whale ships, had it not been for the drones. With those "eyes in the sky," as Watson called them, the whalers were soon located about 1,600 kilometers above Antarctic waters. Watson added that no whales had been killed up until then.

Each year in December, Japan sends out its whale ships to the Southern Ocean, and in the seven years of confrontation with the Sea Shepherd, this is the first time the group has located the fleet before a single whale has been caught. "We caught them due west of Perth," as Watson told Reuters via satellite phone from the ship Steve Irwin. "For the next few days we will be chasing them. We are heading south."

Author: Arun Chowdhury (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Sarah Berning