Why is the Sea Shepherd bad?

Answer 1

Whether they're bad or good is a simple matter of opinion. On one side of the coin, their direct action methods tend to get them referred to as terrorists by those opposed to them. On the other hand, their actions - while still questionable - have never resulted in the death of any person, and claims of physical injury caused by Sea Shepherd actions do tend to be a bit dubious.

Essentially, the SSCS and the ICR are operating in a major grey area which the world prefers to turn a blind eye to. In the 1980s, a moratorium against commercial whaling was imposed. However, whaling for scientific research was exempted from this moratorium, and each nation was allowed to set their own quota on how many whales they kill for this. SSCS and their supporters tend to believe that this is a loophole which the Japanese are exploiting to disguise what is essentially commercial whaling, and this claim is not without its merits - many scientists find themselves more impressed with the lack of research generated by the Japanese programme than with the research derived from it, and, of all the nations which continue to take whales, Japan is the only one with a fleet of such magnitude of theirs, including the Nissin Maru factory ship - the only one of its kind in the entire world.

The ICR, on the other hand, claims the opposite, that their whaling is purely for research, and cite a condition of the moratorium that no part of the whales taken under the research exemption may be wasted as a means of explaining why whale meat from the ICR campaigns is sold on the open market.

As for matters of maritime law, both sides violate it, time and time again.

One of the biggest things to remember is that, aside from the direct action campaign, there is also a major Propaganda campaign, both by the ICR and the SSCS. The ICR tend to highlight on questionable actions committed by the SSCS while ignoring their own, and the SSCS do the same. The SSCS and their supporters tend to overstate the significance of the presence of Long Range Acoustic Devices on the Japanese ships, just as the ICR placed a major emphasis on the presence of a phototonic disruptor on SSCS vessels.

A very hot dispute is ongoing over an incident this past Winter which resulted in a collision between the SSCS ship Ady Gil(a trimaran formerly known as Earthrace, which set a world record for circumnavigation of the globe by a powered vessel), and the ICR security ship Shonan Maru, where both sides are currently claiming the other to be At Fault.

Whether the SSCS is good or bad is really just a matter of personal opinion, and is going to be influenced by where you stand on matters such as whaling, protection of endangered species, upholding of traditional activities, etc.