MB, your metaphor sucks.
Nobody's killing anybody.
Our "pirate/terrorist" is dissuading rogue nations from harvesting whales illegally.
He's not going after those with host-country permission to do so, nor is he harming humans.
Sometimes the mere presence of that black-painted former British trawler is enough to make the rogue whalers turn tail and head back home. They know they've been exposed, and they have no desire to end up on CNN. Others take their chances, and get a bottle of rotten butter acid thrown on their deck, or a prop-fouling net thrown under their keels. That's not good, because if they're dead in the water, they can't escape before the real officials show up to take stock of the situation.
The Japanese? They'd hunt down every last living thing until they were extinct if they were allowed to do so, just to have another type of sushi on their platters - everything has its price, I discovered that the several times I was on temporary duty in Japan. Getting the market to disappear by reducing the demand? Good luck with that. They'd use the whale oil to make ink for Hentai Tentacle Rape comics long before they'd call it quits on whaling. The demand is so great, they send illegal fleets out to augment that which they take through sanctioned means.
