Cape Town - Nikki Botha, one of the South African animal rights campaigners arrested in the Faroe Islands for trying to stop islanders killing whales, has arrived home in Cape Town exhausted and traumatised but determined to fight on.
“It wasn’t pleasant. I don’t want anyone to experience that. But life goes on and I’m ready for the next fight,” Botha, 40, said on Wednesday.
Danish police arrested Botha and a second South African, Monique Rossouw from Secunda, with four other foreigners as they tried to stop the whale hunt in the North Atlantic Islands. A court found them guilty of hindering the Faroe Islanders’ pilot whale hunt and disturbing the peace. They were fined 1 000 kroner (R1 895) each.
The six were volunteers taking part in the activist organisation Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s campaign to stop the whale hunt.
The people of the Faroe Islands, about 320km north of Scotland, have been hunting whales for domestic consumption for hundreds of years, and regard it as a traditional right. They have a law prohibiting anyone from interfering with the hunt.
Botha left her job as a vegan chef in Cape Town to take part in the campaign. She paid R32 000 for her flight and keep while she was there.
“It was worth the money.”
At the time of the hunt, some Sea Shepherd volunteers were in boats, and Botha was on the island.
“The worst moment for me was when I realised that a grind (whale hunt) was really going to happen.
“We had spotted the pod of whales, and saw boats going out, and they were all converging on the pod.”
While the islanders drove the whales towards the shore, Botha and others got into the sea-carrying metal pipes, half in the water and half out, and banged on them with screwdrivers in an attempt to drive the whales away.
“They started killing the whales while we were in the water, all around us.”
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says on its website that the volunteers and the society will not pay the fines as they will not acknowledge that what they did was a crime.
Cape Times