The Sea Shepherds continue their campaign against Japanese whaling “research” vessels this Antarctic summer. New this year are enhanced ISR capabilities,with the introduction of two hand-launched UAVs. One of the Osprey UAVs, named after the Jerseylicious daughter of the recycling mogul who donated it, has already been deployed successfully against the whaling fleet.
The UAVs, roughly modeled after the proven Scan Eagle design, were developed by a small company in Wichita, Kansas. Performance stats on this SUAS aren’t available, but a range estimate of less than 100 miles is likely, given indications of 1-2 hour endurance and 75 MPH speed on various websites. The system flies with a commercially available $2300 GPS-enabled autopilot, but video and telemetry transmission limitations probably result in a much shorter working range (only 10KM from the ship by one source), resulting in an overall range much less than Bob Barker’s embarked Hughes MD500 helo. Still, the increased sensor height greatly extends the ship’s ability to scout for the Japanese whalers when the helo isn’t flying due to crew rest or weather issues. The Ospreys provide the Sea Shepherds with full motion HD video or digital stills and the website’s reference to “detection equipment” may refer to some sort of SIGINT/radio detection payload. These sorts of smallish drones tend to crash frequently for various reasons, especially when flown by inexperienced operators, so we should expect this year’s use of UAVs to be short-lived unless additional spares become available.
The adoption of much more sophisticated (and expensive) ship-launched UAVs such as the Scan Eagle or Siebel S-100 would be needed to really take the Sea Shepherd’s airborne scouting capabilities to the next level. Though given readily available and inexpensive R/C aircraft turned open-source naval UAS such as the Osprey, other non-state maritime actors, many of which are less-benign in intent than the SSCS, may soon adopt UAVs as reconnaissance tools for terror attacks or to avoid navies conducting counter-smuggling operations.
ISR improvements are just one component of the Sea Shepherd’s evolution. The table below (compiled from various web sources) is an attempt to illustrate the changing nature of Sea Shepherd’s capabilities over the past eight anti-whaling campaigns in the Southern Ocean. Note, SSCS’s history dates back much further from the 1970s, and the organization has been involved in many other sea-life defense campaigns, but the annual “Whale Wars” remain their most highly publicized effort.
Also noteworthy are the Japanese whalers' evolving tactics, which include smoke screens, stun grenades, ramming, water cannon, LRADs, and their own information operations campaign.The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.
