Gary Stokes Photography

Here are more images taken from the recent Anti-Whaling Campaign in the Southern Ocean. 88 Volunteer crew from 23 countries set out to shut down whaling in Antarctica. After 6 years of growing success, this year the dedicated, passionate crews reduced the whalers quota to 10% of what they were hoping to kill. The Sea Shepherds chased them out of the whaling grounds and over 2,000 miles to Chile, where with the additional pressure of the Chilean authorities, the whalers threw the towel in and returned home to Japan, hopefully never to return.

On December 2nd, 2010 the Sea Shepherd’s put out to sea. Their mission was to confront and shut down the illegal whaling operations of Japan. With a self imposed “research” quota of 1035 whales, the four whaling ships met with overwhelming resistance from the activists, who harassed their operations and drove them out of Antarctica. The whalers withdraw with only 172 whales, and Sea Shepherd recorded their biggest victory yet. The crews of the Bob Barker and Steve Irwin returned to Hobart for a heroes welcome. I was chosen to be one of the campaign photographers this year, and fortunately was on-board the M/V Bob Barker, the ship that saw most of the action and pursued the whalers almost all the way to Chile.

After the most successful anti-whaling campaign to date in the southern ocean, the Sea Shepherd’s visit fellow forest activists making a stand in the old growth forests of Tasmania. The old growth forests are being completely wiped out to make paper for China and Japan.