Then maybe we need to learn to speak whale-ese. Cause I'm guessing the whales don't much like being harpooned out ovf existence.
There's a couple problems there... first, you don't have evidence to suggest that legal whaling is threatening these species with extinction, and second, you don't have evidence that the whales are both aware of this and against it.
Duh! to everyone who thought I was being literal. My point was that some empathy for another species that occupies a unique niche in ocean ecology might be in order.
If "the law" is the last word on morality, then why does it keep changing? Apartheid was once the law in SA. The U.S. adopted economic sanctions to force the SA government to change their immoral law. In effect, the U.S. government behaved like the Shepherds in order to effect change in the apartheid law. Why? Because it was dead wrong.
Why was the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary law needed to begin with? Because it was believed that whales were being hunted out of existence, and steps needed to be taken to ensure their survival. Japan opposed what 23 countries agreed was an essential step. This doesn't make Japanese whalers immune to protest.
You may not like what the Shepherds are doing to protest Japan's "right" to harvest whales, but it may bring about enough pressure to force Japan to change their law.
Thoreau, Ghandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others used defiance of unjust laws in order to change them. The world would be a poorer place without their "unlawful" efforts.