Andrew is a freelance marine biologist in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
The discussion on the merits of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was incredibly heated and many good points were raised on both sides. Unfortunately, as often happens when comment threads approach 100+ comments, many of the strongest arguments get diluted in a sea of verbiage. I decided to invite one of our frequent commenters, Craig Nazor, to write a guest post on his views of Sea Shepherd. Enjoy!
~Southern Fried Scientist
The debate is whether the tactics of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) are helping or hurting the cause of shark conservation. A disclaimer: this is NOT an official response from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS). Although I am a supporter of that organization, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Any debate that is not going to polarize the ranks of the good guys (that’s us, the conservationists) must be based on facts, and not on false assumptions and not just on emotional reactions. One common but illogical tactic often used to try to win a debate is to repeat a falsehood over and over, hoping to win for a lie the mantle of truth. A lot of time can be wasted refuting lies (or, more diplomatically, opinions disguised as facts). Another related tactic is to use words with unclear definitions but high emotional connotations. In its most simple form, this is what I would label “name calling,” as in recent uses on this blog of the terms “violent,” “criminal,” and “eco-terrorist.” Unfortunately, some of this response is going to have to be focused on addressing such unproductive tactics.
There is a long-running debate about whether it is possible to commit a violent act upon an inanimate object. Is pounding in a nail violent? Is blowing up a condemned structure violent? The Dalai Llama, someone who has spent far more time than most thinking about the difference between violence and non-violence, does not believe it is possible to commit a violent act on an inanimate object. There are few of us who would claim, however, that shark finning or longlining are not violent acts.
Technically, a criminal is someone who has been found guilty of committing an illegal act. But there is also the connotation of the word criminal: “What Paul Watson did was criminal,” in no way declares that Paul Watson has been legally judged a criminal. It simply states that the writer feels that Paul Watson behaves like a criminal. It’s hard to argue with such a statement. But to declare that he IS a criminal is a debatable point.
To make things more difficult, in human history, countless thousands of good people have been legally convicted of crimes that they did not commit, and countless thousands more have committed heinous acts and have never legally been convicted of anything. In 1997, Paul Watson was convicted in absentia in Norway for “attempting” to sink a whaling vessel. He was being held at the time by authorities in the Netherlands, but they refused to turn him over to Norwegian authorities because they did not believe the charges were substantiated.
In the episode filmed in Sharkwater, Paul Watson and the SSCS had been asked by the President of Costa Rica to come help them stop illegal shark fishing. On his way there, Watson reported to the Costa Rican authorities that he had come upon a Costa Rican vessel longlining for sharks illegally. The Costa Rican authorities told Watson to “bring them in.” The fishermen resisted arrest by attempting to flee, which is when Watson used the water cannon to flood their engines, and in the ensuing mêlée the ships collided. (How many times do police cars collide with fleeing suspects? It is a standard of reality television.) Upon arrival in Costa Rica, Watson was charged with “attempted murder” for the collision. When the prosecutor saw the film footage of the incident, he had the charges dismissed, because the collision clearly appeared to be accidental in light of the situation. Somehow, a different prosecutor was then appointed, and this new prosecutor said Watson “should be held in jail pending prosecution.” Watson left Costa Rica before he was re-arrested, and no charges have ever been filed.
Technically, it is hard to support the charge that Paul Watson is a criminal, to the best information that I can find. I believe, however, that this is not really that relevant to the original question.
Paul Watson has said that in the Galapagos, where the SSCS is enforcing the fishing laws in a world heritage site at the request of the Ecuadorian Government, they are usually not allowed to go after the Ecuadorian ships (the poor, indigenous fishermen?), just the foreign ships. It is his opinion that the international market for shark fins is a corrupt business, in many cases run by companies associated with organized crime organizations from around the world, sometimes involving large bribes. In any case, the evidence points strongly to the fact that shark finning IS NOT something done by poor, subsistence fishermen trying to eek out a living. Commercial longlining and the finning of sharks is simply too wasteful a method of fishing, both in time and energy, for someone in a condition of hunger. It is only done to sell the fins at a high price.
But this idea of illegal shark fishing as subsistence survival for fisherman is exactly what these large, corrupt fishing enterprises would want conservation-minded people to believe, so that conservationists WILL NOT support organizations that would enforce the law. (If illegal shark fishing is indeed largely due to subsistence fishing, then I might advise that we would all be far more productive at the Stop Overpopulation Now blog discussing the daunting task of mounting a direct action against the Catholic Church.) In defense of wanting to do something “constructive,” if some people end up believing the subsistence overfishing argument, they might miss the best opportunity to stop the real criminals, that is, the ones who are ACTUALLY BREAKING conservation laws every day.
Regardless of the perpetrator, if we refuse to support the enforcement of laws we have fought so hard to establish, who will enforce the laws? Are poor people exempt from prosecution for robbing their wealthier compatriots because they are poor? Then what about robbing from ones own (and the world’s) children’s future? When respect for any conservation law is lost, then ALL conservation laws suffer. These are a few of the very negative results of refusing to support the enforcement of conservation laws.
Upon research, I find the term “eco-terrorism” to be so poorly and controversially defined as to be useless as anything but an emotional trigger. So in my (emotional) opinion, the largest “eco-terrorist” associations in existence today are the richest companies that have ever existed in the known universe, namely the big oil companies, who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to spread lies about global climate change, which risks acidifying the oceans and destroying most of the world’s coral reefs, among other catastrophes. These corporations, added to the corporate loggers, fishermen, coltan miners, palm oil growers, strip miners, polluters, etc., etc., make the most powerful environmental organizations in the world look about as effective as the hairs on a manatee. In this context, calling Paul Watson an “eco-terrorist” is laughable.
Is the SSCS helping the cause of shark conservation? Well, has ANY other topic on this blog drawn as much discussion? Merely by taking a part in this conversation, I am sure that many have substantially increased their knowledge about the politics of shark conservation. My own curiosity about Paul Watson’s passion and lifetime of knowledge of the politics and economics of this issue has certainly increased my awareness of the magnitude of the problem. So for me, I would have to say his methods have worked. And to those of you who don’t like him or his methods, are you any less passionate about this issue because of the SSCS? Can anyone name one person who, after hearing about the SSCS, has suddenly decided they will NOT support shark conservation?
But there is a very important fundamental MORAL issue that Paul Watson raises by his uncompromising and confrontational tactics: are the lives of humans more important than the rest of the life on this planet? The “American” lifestyle is the envy of the world. But for the “first world” to maintain this lifestyle, everyone else needs to aspire to it so that we can continue to make massive profits selling the things that are “essential” for that lifestyle. Is this sustainable? Science tells us quite plainly that it is not. It is a pyramid scheme, pure and simple. If you or I tried this as a business plan, we would be convicted as criminals.
But the greedy people whose most important goal is to hoard resources (get rich and gather power) want – no, NEED – us to believe something very different. These people need us to believe that humans are more important than all the other life on earth, so that we can exploit it for the transient and flawed human concepts called money and power. They need us to believe that the only way to succeed is to follow their rules, and then we can get rich, too! They need us to believe that economic growth is limitless, that energy resources are infinite, and that God designed it that way – that we don’t need to pay attention to science, and that respecting all life just because it intrinsically deserves it (releasing a shark from a longline that is being confiscating anyway, for instance) is a waste of time or worse, a sign of altruistic weakness. These greedy people need us to believe that if the law is not allowing us to get rich, then it is OK to bend it, redefine it, break it, or ignore it, not so we can live, but so we can dominate the world.
Science tells us otherwise. Our deepest, most intimate moral center of conscience, if we will listen, tells us otherwise, also. It tells us to think deeply about “it” before you kill “it,” because “it” wants to live just as badly as you do. Life is a divine blessing to ALL life. We do not own living things – they own themselves. And if we see something truly and wantonly violent, we need to do something about it. So what do I say to these ignorant people, far, far more powerful than I, who, in their blind greed, are destroying everything that I passionately love? I want so badly to get in their face and yell STOP! YOU IGNORANT, SELFISH FOOLS! YOU ARE CAUSING GREAT SUFFERING! YOU ARE DESTROYING OUR ONLY WORLD, AND OUR CHILDREN”S FUTURE! STOP!!
Well, guess what? That’s exactly what Paul Watson is doing – he is flagrantly IN THE FACE of those who recognized no authority, and saying WE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO DO THIS WITHOUT RESISTANCE. And doing that non-violently is a great challenge and requires taking great risk, because these are very powerful people who have no compunction against violence – just look at the millions of dead sharks, whales, dolphins, seals, etc., etc., and ad nauseum etc. By taking such risks, Paul Watson is saying that the survival of sharks is equal to the lives of humans. This addresses the scientific problem of anthropocentricism and ecosystems. With science, we can win that argument. But without deep passion and moral conviction, which I strongly believe Paul Watson possesses in abundance, we will not win the war against those who refuse to believe science. It simply must be a part of the mix. I am sure I will never agree with everything Paul Watson has said or done, but I am convinced that Paul Watson is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing, and, after thoroughly researching it and thinking deeply about it, this is why I support the SSCS.
~Dr. Craig Nazor
Craig Nazor grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie, where, at an early age, he witnessed first hand the massive destruction that humans can visit upon aquatic ecosystems. In college, his choice of careers was between biology and music, and Craig chose music, although he has never lost a very keen interest in the natural world. Upon graduation from Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Institute of Music with a Bachelor of Arts in Music, he moved to New York City and spent the next seven years living in the “Big Apple” and touring the United States and Europe with various performing arts companies, always taking time to visit the closest natural wonders. In 1982, Craig moved to Natchitoches, Louisiana and received a Master of Music degree from Northwestern State University, where he taught for five years. From there he moved to Austin, Texas and received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently teaching music theory, piano, and composition at Austin Community College, and continues to compose.
Throughout his life, Craig has maintained an active interest in biology. As an aquarist, he has bred many species of freshwater fish, and enjoys both snorkeling and scuba diving. He has been a member of the board of the Friends of the Alexandria Zoo as well as president of the Natchitoches Audubon Society. In 2000, he was hired by the Hartman Foundation to design and install the plantings for the Hartman Prehistoric Garden at Zilker Botanical Gardens. He is a current member of the Austin Cactus and Succulent Society and the Austin Herpetological Society. He supports many ecological groups, from NRDC to Oceana to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He is also the Vice President and Membership Director of the Cycad Society, an international society promoting the cultivation and conservation of cycads, which are a group of ancient plants that have survived from the time of the dinosaurs.
Andrew, I suppose you could argue that “Whale Whores” wouldn’t have existed if not for “Whale Wars”, and therefore “Whale Wars” helped….
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The reason that “The Cove” was so successful is that they had enough money to fund the high-tech equipment and expertise necessary to get the pictures and not get caught, because their filming activity was illegal. “The Cove” was able to financially support an expert team and a great director to put together a marketable end result.
SSCS also tried to get good pictures, but without the funding and the expertise. The SSCS also cut the nets across the mouth of the cove to release the trapped dolphins. Unfortunately, the Japanese hunters, knowing that dolphin groups will not abandon injured members, would injure some of the dolphins so that the healthy ones would not try to escape. Given the circumstances and the opportunity, I would have attempted the same thing. SSCS definitely brought the plight of the dolphins of Taiji to a wider audience, but not wide enough to cause change. Since these events, the SSCS have had a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who would film the Taiji slaughter, and “The Cove “ answered the call.
SSCS funding, since the release of the first season of Whale Wars, is way, way up, because Whale Wars is marketable to a wide audience. Watson is pleased as punch about the South Park publicity, also. From a financial point of view, it is hard to argue that Whale Wars was anything but a huge success for the SSCS. The SSCS’s effect effect on ending whaling remains to be seen.
The definition of direct action by Wikipedia includes all illegal action as direct action. This would put the Cove filming directly into the category of direct action. Putting a vessel between a whaler and a whale, on the open ocean, is not illegal, or in any way violent, but it would be considered direct action, also. What you appear to be talking about is your own moral standard, which of course is to likely differ from my own standard. It’s a slippery eel of a thing to talk about if we don’t mind our emotions and our word definitions.
It is also important that information is accurate. There is no evidence whatsoever that tree spiking has killed anyone. According to Wikipedia, in their discussion about tree spiking:
“An issue with safety has been raised after an injury incident occurred when the blade of a worker broke and hit his body. This led many activists to either reject this form of sabotage entirely, or take some precautions, such as putting warning signs in the area where the trees are being spiked. Tree spiking is condemned by opponents as eco-terrorism as they claim it is potentially dangerous to loggers or mill-workers, although only one injury resulting from tree spiking has been recorded, occurring in a sawmill with poor safety practices.”
I followed this up with some research of my own, and to all who examined this event closely, it appears extremely unlikely that this incident was caused by an eco-terrorist tree spike. It was much more likely caused by lax safety on the part of a Louisiana-Pacific saw mill, and this is indeed the opinion of the injured individual.
Also of interest to the discussion:
“It is believed that tree spiking originated in timber logging labor disputes in the Pacific Northwest of the United States in the late 1800s.”
No citation is offered.
In the Wikipedia entry on Paul Watson, it states, “Watson has claimed to have invented the tactic of tree spiking.” I followed the reference, which was to an extremely anti-environmental web site that was so biased that I did not find it credible. I can find no proof anywhere on the web that Watson ever actually said this.
Tree spiking has little to do with ocean conservation, but my point is this: the web is full of information and misinformation. Misinformation does nothing to further intelligent debate. An untruth, repeated enough times, remains untrue. Paul Watson is a controversial and outspoken individual who is usually right out there on the edge. I personally don’t care if you love him or hate him, but, being an educator, I do care about the accuracy of information so that others may make more informed decisions.
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From the man himself: “But first, some background. I have never gone public on this before but I am now. I was the person who first thought up the tactic of tree-spiking and as such I fell obligated to defend this child of my imagination.”
Source: Earth First! Journal, Mabon (September 22), 1990
The old back issues aren’t online, but a reprint was published in IWW: link to iww.org
Incidently, while Wikipedia is a great place to start, it’s never a credible source on it’s own, especially on anything even remotely controvesial.
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I never denied he said this. I just stated that I couldn’t find an actual quote. This appears legitimate. He is quite adept at what the sports world calls “trash talk.” He certainly gets some people very angry.
I never trust just Wikipedia completely. The footnote on this entry led to a different, much less credible web site, which was itself second hand and undocumented. My web search after that did not turn up this reference.
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It certainly wasn’t easy to find. I remembered the quote from back when I was deep in the Earth First! literature, but it took some effort to track it down, and even then it wasn’t a primary source. I’ve ordered the old journal on inter-library loan, since IWW isn’t exactly unbiased either. I’ll confirm when I get the hard copy.
I have first hand knowledge of two people who have been injured by tree spikes in North Carolina. One of which was killed when a piece of ceramic struck him in the chest. The other was injured when the chain flew back (in defense of the spiking, in the second case the chainsaw was missing a chunk of the guard that keeps the chain from flying all the way back). I was a first responder in the second case, and responded to the scene (too late) in the first. Both were reported as logging accidents, with no record of the ceramic spike as the cause, at the request of logging companies, who have an interest in not admitting that spiking works.
(by First Responder I mean Wilderness First Responder (SOLO trained) working for a completely different organization operating in the same area who happened to be nearby, with a radio, that responded to an emergency call. I was neither acting as a back country professional medic nor as the primary caregiver at either scene.)
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I did finally get my eyes on a back issue of EarthFirst! and the quote was taken verbatim.
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The Cove was not “well funded”, it was funded by a previously little known small conservation organization called the Oceanic Preservation Society. OPS got a loan to pay for their high tech equipment, got another loan to pay for post-production editing, and had a crew that largely consisted of volunteers who believed in the cause.
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OPS was started by Psihoyos (the director) himself and his diving buddy, Jim Clark, one of the venture capitalists behind Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and WebMD. The obtained funding from more sources than your post implies. I am not saying that the process was easy, all I am saying is that he obtained adequate funding to support an endeavour like this.
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They certainly had the cash, but they used it to do the job right. If Sea Shepherd used the massive funding boost from Whale Wars to revise their tactics, I could get behind that. If they just continue to harass whaling ships for another 30 years, then what’s the point?
Hell, I’d even be more sympathetic if they ditched the Steve Irwin and rolled out something with an Ice rating. I’m honestly terrified to see what will happen with the Ady Gil, a ship capable of 40 knots, with a carbon fiber hull, in the Southern Ocean. That’s a recipe for disaster, and tragic loss (I do, in fact, believe that their volunteers are genuine, good hearted, and truly compassionate, but have been drawn into a cult of personality, and wish no ill upon them).
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Sea Shepherd’s brand of direct action differs markedly from other organizations that claim to follow the same philosophy. Since Paul Watson actively claims that “bearing witness” by taking pictures is worthless and actively mocks Greenpeace on film (in the first or second episode of Whale Wars) for just “taking pictures”, photodocumentation is clearly not a core part of their Direct Action philosophy.
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I don’t think it’s unreasonable to claim that Sea Shepherd style direct action and simple photodocumentation are completely different tactics, regardless of what someone else’s definition is.
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Warning – this is, of necessity, a long post.
I have no interest in defending everything Paul Watson has (or is purported to have) said.
I was a Greenpeace supporter for many years. I performed at a number of their fundraisers in the 1980′s, and I hooked them up with a very wealthy donor. My name was in the ledger in the bow of the Rainbow Warrior when the French sank it. The actions they took not long after that (which caused most of their fleet to be confiscated by the French) caused me to rethink my financial support. After that, Greenpeace turned more to street theater, protest, and research than to direct action to protect whales, because they saw the kind of direct action that they used to do as too risky to their financial support. Now, street theater, protest, and research are important, but there were already organizations around that did these things as well as or better than Greenpeace. (Education is important, too, which is why I have taught for much of my life.) I still support Greenpeace, but something more is necessary.
Someone needs to be out in the most remote seas of the world, between the whalers and the whales, saying, “No. You will not do this unopposed.” I discuss this in my article above. I will explain exactly why I feel this way. This is going to be quite unscientific, but then, I am a musician by trade – his comes from the OTHER side of the brain.
Composing music is a very lonely task. There is rarely any insurance that the music one composes will ever be played or listened to by anyone, or is even any good. J. S. Bach was quickly forgotten after his death. Forty percent of his music was lost – it is gone. Many of these compositions were sold shortly after his death for the paper on which they were written to wrap meat. Mozart died young, poor, and depressed. The only existent copies of 63 of Albinoni’s operas were burned in the firebombing of Dresden in WW2. The communist government chased Bela Bartok out of his beloved Hungary at least in part because they thought his music was corrupt. He died shortly later in America, depressed. Composing can be a tough business.
I have composed a number of large concert works for symphony orchestra. Most have been performed to appreciative audiences. Every one of these pieces incorporates environmental themes. I musically imitate bird calls, frog calls, insect sounds – all kinds of natural sounds. I incorporate the “sound images” of the natural world in everything I write, because these things deeply inspire me.
Because this music is what I would call “art music” or concert music, and not popular (or, more accurately, commercial) music, there is no money in writing it. Some pieces I have written I may never hear performed. Why do I do it? Because I have something I want to say that can only be said through music. It can be a very lonely process.
In 1971, an album came out called “Songs of the Humpbacked Whale,” recorded by Roger Payne. It was a revelation to me. There were composers of music in the ocean! These musicians sang long, repeatable works with a frequency range that went above and below the hearing of humans. These songs had harmony, counterpoint, and structure. I borrowed a motive from one of these incredible works and made a piece out of it (just like Beethoven might write variations on a theme by Mozart) for the piano. This piece got me accepted into music school.
Many whales are musicians. They are composers. They are the sirens of ancient Greek mythology (imagine bunking below the waterline in a small wooden ship in ancient times and hearing these songs from the depths!). They sang so beautifully that they might lure sailors to their deaths.
They are not meat. They are not statistics. They are not a “resource to be harvested,” or a “waste of resources” to preserve. They are musicians.
It is not OK with me for ANYONE to kill whales cruelly and unnecessarily. If someone is willing and able to go down to the southern oceans and put himself between the whalers and the whales and say, “No! You will not do this unopposed!,” then that’s my man, and I will support him, warts and all.
Well, there’s only one man I know willing to do this. Paul Watson’s the man. He’s protecting the musicians in the ocean. It’s the least I can do.
Today, I just played “Songs of the Humpbacked Whale” to a very talented, young composition student who was feeling a little down. He was blown away.
The circle is unbroken, as long as there are new musicians to learn the ancient songs.
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I’d be lying if I said the ideal of Sea Shepherd wasn’t appealing, to go out into the open sea and take justice for ourselves. I want them to be right, I want them the succeed, but all evidence points to the contrary.
It’s not enough to just be passionate. It’s not enough to just be driven by a sense of justice and compassion, you also have to get the job done.
From where I stand, whaling will continue in Japan for the foreseeable future. This isn’t a statement of fatalism or surrender, it’s an observation and a rallying cry. From where I stand, Japan will continue whaling unless the Japanese people can be persuaded that whales and dolphins are worth more than their meat. From where I stand, the efforts of Sea Shepherd are making it harder for this goal to be obtained.
“Songs of the humpback” was a powerful piece of this puzzle. Because conservation is not just about science, not just about ecology. If the only morality was the law of data, we’d abandon the North Atlantic Right Whale and we’d leave the Minkes to the whalers. But conservation is about compassion and value. Science does not set the goals of conservation, it informs the methods.
On this front, our goals are the same, but I see the methods of Sea Shepherd and I don’t see the mechanism that leads from their actions to the end of whaling. The whale they save today will be hunted next year, and the year after that, until whaling ends.
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The scientific data revealing the true value of any species remains incomplete. This means that some portion of the value of life will only be judged by the heart (read: intuitive “side” of the brain). I suspect that humans are capable of both avenues of evaluation because it yields a survival benefit. This is how we attempt to make good choices when the data is incomplete.
The list of species once thought to be worthless or expendable and now known to be essential or extremely useful in some way is too long to enumerate. Because of this long history of misjudgment, I choose to err on the conservative side when it comes to saving species.
Judging people’s reaction to the actions of others is also a difficult task. Some people, in order to be effective at manipulating the actions of others, make a great effort to modulate their actions to elicit a certain response. If this begins to be perceived as dishonest, this can backfire. So to be effective at manipulation, you either have to be a damn good liar, or you have to have sincere passion in what you believe. Now, I know from experience that I am a lousy liar, so that leaves me one other choice.
I believe that, whether they know it or not, people choose to feel the way they feel, and are responsible for that. So if I speak or act from honest passion to confront a wrong, some people will always choose to react with anger. That doesn’t bother me so much, because they are responsible for that, and in the end, their reactions will be perceived that way.
In order to reduce human impact on the environment, it remains to be seen which avenue or combination of avenues is most effective to change human behavior. Maybe neither manipulation (politics), honest passion, dispassionate science, nor any combination of those will save much of the life on earth from the massive number of people who refuse to take responsibility for their feelings, and consequently their actions. Only time will tell.
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Total and completely irrelevant side note from someone who love linguistics and the way we use idiomatic expressions:
“It’s a slippery eel of a thing to talk about if we don’t mind our emotions and our word definitions.”
Holy crap that is just an awesome phrase. I hope you don’t mind if I use “It’s a slippery eel of a thing…” in conversation?
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Be my guest. I don’t seem to get the feeling that eels are easily offended!
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Heck even South Park knows that Watson and his Sea Sheep are liars for cash.
Missing in all these comments is a larger debate about the differences between “conservation” and the commercialized cultural eccentricity known as “animal rights” and its wider implications for conservation and environmentalism generally.
For the record, I do NOT in any way support the Sea Shepherds or Animal Rights but I am in the front lines of Conservation at the community level.
Most of Watson’s campaigns have been to blur the line between conservation and animal rights and have resulted in campaigns based largely on the demonization of some of the most sustainable renewable resource harvesters on the planet whether it be Seal Hunters or Faeroese Pilot whalers etc…
Watson let the Cod go extinct because there was more money in demonizing sustainable east coast seal hunters who themselves had spent years trying to get attention to how the Grand Banks were being emptied.
Knowing as I do that almost anything that comes out of a Sea Shepherd’s mouth is an outright lie or distortion, why should I think the situation with shark finning is any different?
The Sea Sheep are milking what’s left of an old media model. They only have traction in print and TV where few people make the decisions.
In the information age, demonization and lies tend to wilt in the light.
I look forward to the information age putting the hucksters and their groupie followers out to pasture.
Sorry folks but whales are food too.
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If you think that South Park supports Japanese whaling, I don’t think you understand South Park.
Underlying the arguments for conservation and for animal rights are similar moral principles. The two cannot be cleanly divided. “Animal rights” is certainly less commercialized than “Christmas,” and yet Christmas continues to exert its own magic on much of the world.
Try beating your cat or dog to death with a hooked club or shooting it with small, explosive pellets and tell me how that works for you. Then explain to me the moral difference between the life of your pet and that of a whale or a seal. To the Vietnamese, cats are “food.” In the Philippine Islands, dogs are “food.”
The seal hunt in Canada and Japanese “scientific” whaling are not commercially viable without large government subsidies. There is also scientific evidence that seals eat fish that prey on young cod, and to reduce seal populations actually increases young cod predation in the Grand Banks. Because pilot whale flesh, like most other large predator flesh from the oceans, is polluted with high levels of PCBs, mercury, and other heavy metals, the Faroese Chief Medical Officer does not advise eating the meat. This is most likely why the rate of Parkinson’s disease on the Faroe Islands is twice that of the rest of Denmark.
So moral issues aside, there are good financial, environmental, and health reasons not to support the animal slaughters that you mention.
Saying that “Watson let the Cod go extinct” is not true. In 1984, Paul Watson said: “Unless the DFO closes the Cod fishery, the species will become commercially extinct by 1995. They must stop catering to the greed of the industry and the fishermen and act in the interest of preserving the species.” He was heavily criticized for that statement at the time, but it was a far more accurate prediction than the predictions given by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans who were finally forced to announce a “surprise” collapse of the Cod fisheries in 1992. Certain parts of the government then began blaming seals for the crash of the Cod fisheries, although science disproves this, also. Despite years of seal hunts since 1992, the cod fisheries have not rebounded.
And so it goes. Slaughter upon slaughter. Now consider your own emotional comments, the comments of an avowed “Conservationist.” Do you not see some kind of moral truth, some kind of flaw in human nature, running through all of this?
All life is a part of the food chain. This does not mean that we should eat everything that will fit into our mouths.
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“My clients are the whales. I could care less what you think.”
~Paul Watson
I’d say that says it all. Your moral boundaries are meaningless. The oceans are dying, and Paul Watson has devoted his life to stop marine poaching. Do more than he does and then you can criticize. Until then, you’re just posting on a blog while he’s piloting a ship in Antarctica.
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You may want to check out Underwater Thrills extensive coverage of Sea Shepherd before parroting the SSCS talking points.
link to sharkdivers.blogspot.com
I still remain flabbergasted that people think any organization should be above criticism. A 32 year track record of failure should make you wonder if Sea Shepherd, as well intentioned as they might be, really has the right strategy to affect change. At the very least, it demands discussion and analysis.
But I guess when your methods are so profoundly flawed, all you can do is try to silence critics.
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Andrew, why do you hate whales so much?
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“All life is a part of the food chain. This does not mean that we should eat everything that will fit into our mouths.”
When we are in the middle of a food diversity crisis; YES ABSOLUTELY IT DOES!
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What do you mean about the link, Craig? It seems to work for me, but we want to make sure that it works for everyone. Can you please describe the problem specifically? Thanks!
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