At the Edge of the World follows the Sea Shepard Conservation Societies efforts to prevent the Japanese whaling boats from harvesting minke, fin and humpback whales from the ocean sanctuaries in the freezing waters of Antarctica in 2007.
The Japanese work under a loophole in the international conservation laws that allow them to hunt whales for research, however, as all the meat harvested for the research is sold for human consumption, the idea that you need to kill a certain quota of whales to research them seems quite thin, particularly when they do so from areas considered ocean sanctuaries.
Since the governments in charge of these areas do not do anything to stop the whaling, the Sea Shepard attempts to enforce the ban in these areas with aggressive action on the seas by using prop foulers (bunches of frayed and knotted rope that get sucked into the propellers of a ship to stop or slow it down), stink bombs and various other tactics to try and save the whales. This has labelled them by some as eco terrorists or pirates.
Interested in giving this a go? You can watch the whole thing below:
Since this movie there have been several other docu’s that discuss this topic as well as the Animal planet TV series Whale Wars if you are looking for more info. And if you are looking for further reading about the current state of this business, take a peek at the following recent articles:
Lives In Stone 