Phil Kline, a senior member of Greenpeace's anti-whaling program, declined to discuss Watson or the recent incident in any detail, but he said that Greenpeace's peaceful approach to international whaling gets results. Everywhere he went, he created divisiveness." Watson, for his part, has referred to the group as "yellowpeace" for its policy of nonviolence. Senior Greenpeace member Bob Hunter later wrote: "He seemed possessed by too powerful a drive, too unrelenting a desire to push himself front and center, shouldering everyone else aside… He had consistently gone around to other offices, acting out the role of mutineer. In 1977 he was expelled from Greenpeace, not exactly known as a group of shrinking violets, by a vote of 11-1 (the lone vote in support was Watson's own) and he has publicly feuded with the organization in the years since. Watson's methods have not only seen him barred from Iceland and jailed in Norway, but have also turned off former allies. When it drew close, down came the Norwegian flag and up went the Jolly Roger. Earlier this week, his newest boat, the $5 million Bob Barker(named for the game-show host that paid for it), approached the Japanese fleet flying a Norwegian flag, on the theory that the Japanese would think it was a friendly from one of the two other remaining whaling nations. Watson's gone so far in embracing his self-image as an ecological pirate that he's made the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger the symbol of his fleet and he's long argued that environmentalists need to be devious and confrontational in pursuing their ends. In over 30 years of environmental activism, he has taken a militant approach to whalers and other opponents that have seen him crow about intentionally ramming other ships (video at end of post of Sea Shepherd ship deliberately ramming a Japanese whaler in 2008) and paint the side of one of his earlier vessels with a tally of "enemy" whalers sunk, including the name of a Norwegian vessel that sank after its hull was breached by a limpet mine in 1980. Retreat has never been one of Watson's strong suits. We now have a real whale war on our hands. “If they think that our remaining two ships will retreat from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the face of their extremism, they will be mistaken. Watson said in a press release issued from his flagship Steve Irwin. "The Japanese whalers have now escalated this conflict very violently,” Mr. The Gil, when it was known as Earthrace, set a global circumnavigation record. But Watson also managed to get a plug in for his reality TV show, " Whale Wars."Įarly Wednesday the Ady Gil, a $2.5 million carbon-fiber trimaran that his organization has been using to harass the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, was abandoned to sink after it was sheared in half by a collision (see video just below) with a much larger, steel-hulled boat running security for the Japanese fleet. If you want to get a couple chuckles & see how NOT to conserve, well this is for you, if you take it all seriously and cry when a whale is killed, well skip it.The reaction of Paul Watson, the controversial leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to the destruction of the crown jewel in his tiny anti-whaling fleet on Wednesday was swift. These people all have such high self-importance of themselves that quite simply doesn't exist. Their is a line that needs to be drawn as far as conservation is concerned and what's even worse is that they most definitely cause more harm than if they did nothing. It's doubtful anyone would hire these borderline personalities to begin with, well who knows. How these people can take off 2 months at a time w/out losing their job if they aren't already mooching off their respective countries. Back to the show, it's enjoyable, but if you take anything that is being done seriously well that's sad. Greenpeace is already messed up, though I can understand saving some animals to a certain extent, but for this so-called "Captain" getting voted out 11-1 as his was the only dissenting vote, is pretty pathetic in it's own right. What everyone reminds you of on the ship is these are all of the people that were made fun of or booed at because of their lack of education or just plain ignorance. You know other cultures eat dogs, cats, or whatever but for some reason that seems to pretty well ignored. I enjoy the show, but mainly because of the way they all conduct themselves. This is not a classic program & the people chasing the whalers really don't have any clue about cultural or religious aspects on why the Japanese or other cultures eat things that we wouldn't.
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