The battle in the Southern Ocean this year has been going on both at sea and in the courts. The Antarctic whaling conflict between activists and whalers worsened last month, with collisions and damage as activists disrupted the refuelling of the whaling fleet. Last month a US court also reached a decision declaring the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd pirates (who have three vessels currently docked in Melbourne). The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals castigated members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and its founder Paul Watson for the tactics they’ve used in their relentless campaign to disrupt the annual Japanese whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. In his decision, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said (PDF) to be a pirate,

you don’t need a peg leg or an eye patch…When you ram ships, hurl glass containers of acid, drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders, launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks, and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate. No matter how high-minded you believe your purpose to be.

The US court of appeal ruled (PDF) that a lower court had wrongly interpreted that Sea Shepherd’s activities weren’t conducted for private ends: Read more