The inflatables by this point had backed off from the catcher ship, still parallel, but not directly in front of the harpooner anymore. It seems senseless to delay the inevitable killing of an injured animal. Now it was only a matter of the harpoonist getting a clean shot to put the whale out of it’s misery. It would undoubtedly die from the already sustained injury should it escape.


Greenpeace activists try to hinder the transfer of a whale to the Nisshin Maru factory ship from a catcher ship

BANG. He’d fired again, I was looking through the camera this time and I distinctly remember seeing the harpoon fly before hearing the sound of the detonation. We all watch the rope. He’s missed again. We wonder is he a bad shot? That we doubt, these are skilled men doing their job. Has he had one sake too many the night before? Have the inflatables unnerved him and made him loose his aim, his concentration? If so then he shouldn’t be manning a lethal weapon, he shouldn’t be taking half chances. If he has to do his job then it should be with 100% certainty of killing the mammal. Perhaps the stress of knowing the world is watching is getting to him.

The chase continues, the whale breaches. BANG. Another shot, another loose rope in the water. Another miss. There seems to be more people on deck now of the ship. Is confusion reigning there? Are tempers getting frayed? The pressure seems to be mounting, the harpoonist must be in inner turmoil. Our inflatables have retreated even further, off to the sides, giving the catcher the space in which to finish their ugly business. Easily this chase has gone on for over 10, 15, 20 minutes. It’s hard for me to know.The whale still breaches, sometimes very close. I try to get a photograph with it in the foreground, the catcher ship further away. We speed away ahead, but there’s no knowing where it will surface.

The catcher is turning to port side, to the left. It’s obvious the whale is directly in front of it, and they are closing the distance. You know it is coming. The end. End of the chase, end of a life.

BANG. There it goes. He can’t have missed, and he hasn’t. In my memory, the 4th harpoon gets the whale and sticks. We close in in our inflatable to record the end. We circle from the starboard side of the catcher round the bow to the port side, the ‘Billy G’ is already there. The rope is being winched up, little blue marks on it telling the crew the distance or depth of rope let out. I shot an image of the taught rope across the name of the ship, YUSHIN MARU, thinking perhaps that photographically that would say it all. Taught rope, dead whale.

I signal Odin to move closer, the water starts to smooth out, it seems the whale is nearing the surface. Then the water breaks and a huge fluke raises out, with a long muscular body. Shiny blue black. It starts to thrash about, beside the hull of the ship. It is constantly being winched up, and then the fin part of the body breaks the surface, and we all recoil in shock. There are curses in the inflatable. A harpoon has ripped apart the back of the whale. A horrible injury. Blood is gushing from it. All this I see through my 70-200mm lens, in close up. Technicolor close up. I see it as it whacks against the side of the ship, no doubt sending more searing pain through it’s shredded body.


Inflatable and crew from Greenpeace ship MY Esperanza try to hinder the shooting of a minke whale by the Yushin Maru No.2 catcher ship. Southern Ocean

I frame it as a vertical as a Yushin Maru crew leans over the side with a shotgun, ready to fire into the head of the whale to end it’s life. According to my colleagues, he fires twice. I didn’t notice, but I changed a lens, cleaned a lens of water. Things are still in high speed in my head.