THE INSTITUTE OF CETACEAN RESEARCH
4-5 TOYOMI-CHO, CHUO-KU, TOKYO 104-0055 JAPAN
PHONE: +81-3-3536-6521 FAX: +81-3536-6522

MEDIA RELEASEANIMAL PLANET COLLABORATED WITH ECOTERRORISTS
Washington, DC, 29 October 2008 The Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), aJapanese scientific body that studies whales, today accused the United States
television broadcast channel Animal Planet of involvement in ecoterrorism, following
criminal attacks against its research ships in the Antarctic Ocean. (See footage at
http://www.icrwhale.org/eng-index.htm).
Animal Planet, which is owned by Discovery Communications, contracted with
Tennessee-based RIVR Productions to produce a new series called “Whale Wars”,
scheduled for broadcast in the United States in the coming weeks. RIVR joined thecrew of one of the ships owned and operated by the militant animal rights group, Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society, as it launched a series of criminal attacks on the highseas in January, February and March 2008 against vessels operated by ICR. In
August 2008, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department issued arrest warrants forthree of the Sea Shepherd militants for violating the Convention for the Suppressionof Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (the SUA Convention ofthe International Maritime Organization).
Unlike land-based ecoterrorist groups, Sea Shepherd’s modus operandi is to sabotage
fishing operations by attacking vessels at sea beyond national boundaries, thereby
avoiding prosecution. In March 2008, as the attacks on the ICR’s vessels were taking
place, a former Sea Shepherd and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) operative was given a
one-year federal jail sentence in California for teaching people how to make adestructive device that could commit arson. A guidebook on eco-guerilla activity
written by the head of Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson, contains a chapter on how to use
fire against an “enemy”.
Increased criminal violence against the Institute’s research vessels coincided with thepresence and filming by Animal Planet on the Sea Shepherd attack vessel. AnimalPlanet has itself admitted that the campaign “was particularly eventful” (AnimalPlanet press release, 10 July 2008). The violence included the deployment ofpropeller fouling devices constructed from steel cables, throwing acid, smoke bombs
and bottles onto the decks of the ICR vessels and attempted collisions. Sea Shepherd
has also welded a seven-foot steel blade to its ships to open the hulls of the vessels itattacks.
Animal Planet established no internal systems or safeguards to prevent its executive
team, the production company and the ecoterrorists from colluding to carry out
unlawful acts for the television cameras in order to produce sensational footage.

In addition to Animal Planet’s involvement with violent attacks against its ships andseafarers, ICR is concerned that broadcasting the series will serve to glamorize
ecoterrorism and make future violent attacks more likely.
Mr. Minoru Morimoto, Director General of the Institute of Cetacean Research, said:“It is difficult to understand why a mainstream network would stoop so low as toproduce a series that glamorizes and thereby gives support to ecoterrorism. Sea
Shepherd’s criminal actions last year in the Antarctic were encouraged directly
through the presence of the Animal Planet film team. Animal Planet is responsible forinciting this increased violence and aiding and abetting an international criminalorganization.”