Now that the Australian government has betrayed the whales and has refused to intervene against illegal Japanese whaling operations, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has decided to offer a substantial reward for information on the coordinates of the Japanese whaling fleet.

"We are prepared to pay $100,000 U.S. dollars for information that enables our vessel the Steve Irwin to find and locate the Japanese whaling fleet," said Captain Paul Watson from onboard the Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin in the Southern Oceans.

The Steve Irwin is searching the vast area of the Southern Oceans for the Japanese whaling fleet. It is a difficult task made all the more difficult by the fact that the Japanese government has the military capability of monitoring the position of anti-whaling vessels and relaying that information to the Japanese whaling fleet.

The Australian government is well award of the location of the Japanese fleet but is refusing to release the coordinates so as to not cause an international incident over the killing of whales in the Australian Antarctic Territory.

"We know that there are people who have access to this information," said Captain Paul Watson. "We are prepared to pay $100,000 U.S. dollars for any information that leads us to the Japanese whaling fleet so that we can intervene against their illegal whaling operations. This reward can be paid without disclosing the identity of the source of the information."

The reward will be paid if the Society locates the whaling fleet within 200 miles of coordinates provided.

Whales are being killed illegally in the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary and they are being slaughtered now. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society can stop this slaughter but we need to find the Japanese whaling fleet in order to do so. That is the most difficult part of this campaign and a reward of $100,000 will actually save Sea Shepherd more than this amount in fuel being used by the Steve Irwin for the search.

"$100,000 is a small price to pay for the lives of the whales we can save," said Captain Watson. "If we could afford more we would pay more, the lives of the whales are priceless and we know that somewhere, someone has the information that can lead us to the whale killers. We hope this reward will provide an incentive for someone to come forward with the information we need."

(Thanks to http://www.myspace.com/operationleviathan)