Nottinghamshire Animal Liberation Newswire Archive

Sunday 25th January saw the national Animal Rights Coaliton meeting (ARC) take place at the Beesley Green Community Centre near Manchester. Attendees came from as far afield as Birmingham, Nottingham, North Wales, Leeds, Lancashire, London, Swansea, Coventry and of course Manchester. There was also a representative of the Mexican Animal Rights movement who attended to see how the process of Animal Rights activism in the UK was organised.

Notable absentees it would seem, refreshingly, were PC Plum and his camera wielding hordes, due to the heightened threat of terrorist activity in the town of Balamory perhaps?

Kicking at 10am with a chance to form and strengthen bonds between AR activists from across the country, the event drew in excess of 50 people, both human and canine. Far from presenting an image of a movement in fear, licking it's wounds following recent high profile trials, including the sentencing of a number of SHAC activists for conspiracy to blackmail and the start of Mel Broughton's retrial, the mood was on the whole upbeat, positive and imaginative.

A Nottingham resident who joined the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as part of their crew on the vessel Steve Irwin has returned home. Dan, who has volunteered with Sea Shepherd previously, rejoined in the middle of this year's anti-whaling mission against the continued Japanese whale hunting activities in the Southern Ocean. Named Operation Migaloo, after the only known albino humpback in the world, this was Sea Shepherd's fourth expedition to the remote southern waters off the coast of Antarctica and has been typically eventful.

In January, two Sea Shepherd volunteers were taken hostage by Japanese whalers. Then in March, several of the crew were injured when the Japanese military threw grenades onto the ship and opened fire on them. The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin covered a total of 20,090 nautical miles (37,205 kilometers) during Opertaion Migaloo and made 3 return trips from Melbourne, Australia to the coast of Antarctica in 3½ months. In total, the ship was at sea for 83 days between December 5, 2007 and March 15, 2008. It is estimated that due to continued harrasment by the Sea Shepherd, the Japanese have not managed to get even half their whale quota this hunting season.

Dan is an activist from Nottingham who has joined the crew on board the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin in a bid to stop the illegal whaling activities of the Japanese near Antartica. The mission, named Migaloo, started last December and after refuelling in Melbourne last month, the Sea Shepherd crew is back in the oceans, have managed to track down the whaling fleet and have been in hot persuit of its main vessel, the Yushin Maru No. 2 for the last week. Accoring to one of the crew onboard the ship "the weather is getting colder and we are getting many hours of darkness now. The Antarctic winter is creeping up on us. The seas are getting rougher and we are getting blizzards." We joined Dan via sattelite phone to ask him about his adventures..