Sea Shepherd!

Hello everybody!

How's it going?
I'm a little frustrated because of all the studying, so I decided that I'm gonna do something else now. Since my brother is a huge fan of Sea Shepherd and keeps telling us all about it I decided that I want to check out their website and see if the things my brother tells us are actually true - because they do sound kinda unbelievable from time to time. ;) When I clicked my way through the website now I decided that I would like to blog about it as it's really interesting and I think we should spread the word about the terrible things that are going on and what Paul Watson and his supporters are doing about it.

So, let's start at the very beginning: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is an international non-profit organisation that fights for the protection of marine wildlife. You may have heard about it a few weeks ago when it made the headlines because it stopped a Japanese whaling fleet from hunting down whales in the Southern Ocean. Anyway, Sea Shepherd was founded in 1977 by Captain Paul Watson, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace. Watson fought for animal rights all his life, starting at the age of nine. He parted form Greenpeace because he saw the need for a special focus on marine wildlife and also, because he wanted to become more active and also radical in order to protect wildlife even more. Today, he is regarded as a guardian of marine wildlife who does whatever he can in order to protect sea mammals. He is wanted in a number of countries world wide.

^^ Captain Paul Watson

Sea Shepherd is operating in numerous campaigns all over the globe. These include fights for the protection of Bluefin Tuna, Dolphins, Reefs, Seals, Sharks and Whales. Even though their actions might seem radical I personally can not bring myself to condemning them because I share the opinion that you have to act a little extreme in order to really change something. Sea Shepherd is not hurting anyone, they are simply fighting for the lives of absolutely amazing, fascinating and intelligent creatures, who are not able to protect themselves. Also, Sea Shepherd is only bluffing in many of their operations and the actions they carry out never actually hurt anyone.

Terrible actions are carried out all over the world, like the annual killing of hundreds of dolphins and small whales in the cove of Taiji (Japan). Other well-known examples are the annual slaughter of whales on the Faroe Islands, the annual seal "hunt" in Canada and many more. Each of these so-called traditions are barbaric and need to stop. If humans keep killing animals, not only marine but all of them, we will slowly but surely reach a point when there are no more to kill. Then we will not only have caused a horrifying number of species to become extinct, we will also have managed to destroy the fragile ecosystem we live in - and nobody knows the consequences this will have!

It might be true that these traditions derive from an ancient need of people to survive in the arctic, for instance, but seriously, this is not necessary any more! Even in the northernmost town in the world you do have access to a grocery store and a clothing store, there's simply no need to kill whales or seals to survive any more. Some other of these hunts claim to do it under the guise of science, but once again, seriously, why would science need a few hundred dead whale bodies?!

Personally, I think that Sea Shepherd is doing the right thing protecting good-hearted creatures that can't stand up for themselves. 

There are several ways in which you could support Sea Shepherd like donating money or goods (they do have a wish list online), buying merchandise articles or by volunteering either on shore or on the sea. Here you can watch the recruitment video for Operation Relentless 2014 in the Southern Ocean. I have already considered applying for one of the operations, but this may will have to wait until I'm done with my studies.

Should really getting involved be a little too much for you at this point, how about simply informing yourself?
I know that these movies are terrible to watch and will leave you all devastated, but still, I recommend watching

• The Cove (documentary on the slaughter in Taiji)
• Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist (documentary on Paul Watson) I found link where you can watch this one online, unfortunately it's the German version, but anyway, here's the link
• Dolphin Prison (documentary on the brutal treatment of dolphins all over the world)

and many more.

Also, Captain Paul Watson published a number of books - some of which are out of print, so rather hard to get

• Shepherds of the Sea (1979)
• Sea Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals (1982)
• Cry Wolf (1985)
• Earthforce! (1993)
• Ocean Warrior (1994)
• Seal Wars (2002)

^^I hope you found it interesting and if I could awaken your interest in Sea Shepherd and the protection of marine wildlife it's even better! :)