The Greenpeace helicopter, 'tweety', circles a Japanese whaler and its kill.

Onboard the M/V Arctic Sunrise

Day Sixty-nine - 16 January 2000

"Tweety Enters the Picture"

The good news buzzing through Greenpeace's international network and had now made its way, via satellite, onto the M/V Arctic Sunrise. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark had issued a strongly worded statement against Japan's illegal whale hunt in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The Prime Minister went further to criticize the Japanese Whaling fleet's conduct in response to Greenpeace non-violent direct actions in the Southern Ocean. The New Zealand government was following up with an official cable to the Japanese government urging them to halt their whaling program.

"Being a New Zealander, I wanted to punctuate what Prime Minister Clark had said," our helicopter pilot explained.

Tweety, the Greenpeace helicopter, is registered in New Zealand and Barry, her mechanic, is a New Zealand citizen. The New Zealanders spent the morning rigging a banner that read "Stop" to the back of the Helicopter. This would give Phil a chance to drive home the point personally.

Once airborne, Phil flew Tweety in circles around the Nisshin-maru while the factory ship waited for a catcher boat to arrive with its kill. When the Kyo-maru approached with a dead whale tied along side for delivery one of the Greenpeace inflatables maneuvered in front of the ship. We were unable to prevent the delivery of the whale but we had made our presence felt.

We now began to follow the Kyo-maru as it resumed the hunt. Another Greenpeace inflatable joined the chase. The two Greenpeace inflatables and the helicopter chased the Japanese whaling ship deep into a dense ice field.

The ice eventually made further pursuit impossible for the tiny plastic and rubber boats, but it also made whaling extremely difficult for the crew of the Kyo-maru. The ship would be forced to slowly maneuver back to the edge of the ice before she could start hunting again.

Tweety and a Greenpeace inflatable follow the Japanese whaling ship Kyo-maru into an ice field. Click on the image to see a larger photo.

We had hindered Japan's illegal whaling again, if only briefly. More important, we were able to support New Zealand's message to Japan. Hopefully, more countries will soon join New Zealand and the others that have condemned Japan's whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary.

The crew got another big morale boost when we learned that Brazil's Minister of the Environment officially condemned Japan's whaling, and, in a letter to the Japanese embassy, called on Japan to comply with the relevant international laws. We remain more determined than ever to continue this campaign until Japan stops whaling for good.

"It felt really good to get that out of my system," said Phil. "We can only hope that we've done the deed."

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