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This was the largest of six whaling stations on the island. Recently restored, it now houses a post office and a museum. There, you get a glimpse of what it would have been like at its height, awash with blood and guts, massive tanks, huge pots and jumbles of rusted chain used to pull the carcasses up to the plant as well as winches used to strip the blubber off.

Grytviken station closed in 1962.

Photo by Daphne Bramham / PNG

But the fact that whales have survived into the 21stcentury is due to the International Whaling Commission’s 1982 ban on whaling in the Southern Ocean and, in part, to activists like Paul Watson, whose Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has tried to enforce the ban.

AP

Watson founded the society 40 years ago after parting ways with Greenpeace.

With a modified Jolly Roger as its symbol, its most aggressive campaign has been against Japan’s continued whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Japan is a member of the IWC, but it continues whaling under the guise of scientific research. It does so in defiance of a 2014 International Court of Justice ruling in a case brought by Australia and New Zealand. The court ordered the hunt to cease because it didn’t meet conventional scientific standards at that time.

This year, it plans to kill around 300 Antarctic whales — mostly minkes. It’s been condemned by the European Union and 12 other countries. Canada was not among them.

But, for the first time in 12 years, there’s no Jolly Roger flying in the Antarctic. Watson called an end to the battle. Technology, not passion, has defeated him and his non-profit organization.