SEA SHEPHERD WITHDRAWS FROM WHALE PROTEST, TEMPORARILY Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: seashepherd@lists.estreet.com Mon Apr 26 20:23:47 1999 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 26, 1999 SEA SHEPHERD TEMPORARILY WITHDRAWS SHIP OUT OF RESPECT FOR MAKAH ELDER Anti-whaling activists will return to Neah Bay after funeral In recognition of the passing of Hildred Ides, 84, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is delaying the return of its anti-whaling vessel to Neah Bay, Washington, the site of the Makah Indian tribe's proposed Gray whale hunt, until after Friday's funeral for the tribal elder. "We want to express our condolences to the Ides family for their loss," said Sea Shepherd President Paul Watson from Sekiu on Monday morning. "We have no quarrel with the Makah people. We are contending against the long-term business plans of the Makah Tribal Council and their trading partners in Japan, who are conspiring to lay the foundations of a commercial trade in whale meat on the backs of California Gray whales." "We have nothing but respect and admiration for the tribal elders and the cultural traditions of the Makah," said Sea Shepherd's Expedition Leader Lisa Distefano. "We have nothing but contempt for those who have ignored the elders and seek to pervert those traditions for their own ends. We can only hope that the whalers will also respect the Ides family's loss." Sea Shepherd vessels led the successful protest against the Makah's first attempted whale hunt in seventy years last fall, when the presence of protestors and media dissuaded the hunters. Sea Shepherd has since joined other litigants in a lawsuit before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which argues that the Makah have never been recognized by the International Whaling Commission as a tribe with a subsistence need to hunt whales, and that, under the 1949 U.S. Whaling Convention Act, they cannot kill a whale without such recognition from the IWC. ===================================== Sea Shepherd Conservation Society P.O. Box 628 Venice, CA. 90294 USA e-mail: seashepherd@seashepherd.org Web Site: http://www.seashepherd.org Tel: 310-301-SEAL(7325) Canada: 604-688-7325 Fax: 310-574-3161 ===================================== ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-05.01.99-13:02:16-32190