In the interest of full disclosure, after much feedback following the last post regarding Sea Shepherd, I felt that it was my responsibility to disclose that one of my good friends is an avid seal clubber.
Please accept our apologies for the inital ommission.
Lars and the 42 Crew
Friday
No rest for the Sea Shepherds
Sea Shepherd Announces:
Seal Defense Campaign 2008!
Sea Shepherd Crew to Shift from the Southern Ice to the Northern Ice
Captain Paul Watson and some of his crew will not rest after defending whales when they return to Australia after three and a half months of chasing and harassing Japanese whaling ships, and will instead continue on to defend baby seals.
Within days of returning to Australia in late March, they will be flying halfway around the world to Bermuda where Sea Shepherd’s other ship the Farley Mowat is docked. From there they will head North into the ice packs off Eastern Canada to defend baby harp seals from the ruthless clubs of Canadian sealers.
“There is no rest on planetary duty,” said Captain Paul Watson from onboard the Steve Irwin off the coast of Antarctica. “Half our year is spent amongst icebergs and on ice floes. Our job is to hunt the hunters to defend their victims and that takes us from the bottom of the world to the top and many places in between.”
Captain Watson has been fighting the Canadian seal slaughter all his life. It was shut down in 1984 and resurrected in 1994.
“All our victories are usually temporary,” he said. “Unfortunately our defeats are usually permanent.”
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is confident that years of risk and effort will soon pay off. The European nations are banning seal products and seal products have been banned in the United States since 1972. Sea Shepherd has been slowly lobbying to remove the markets at the same time as we have been mounting dramatic confrontations on the ice to physically save the seals from the cruel clubs of the sealers.
Patience and persistence is paying off. The seal hunt survives only because of subsidies doled out to the sealing industry by the government of Canada. It has become a glorified welfare scheme where in return for killing seals for a few weeks the sealers can qualify for unemployment insurance for the rest of the year.
“They say it’s part of their culture,” said Captain Watson who himself grew up in an Eastern fishing village in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. “It’s a culture based on the cruel clubbing of baby seals for a few weeks each year and drinking Canadian Club and beer the rest of the year. It’s a culture that any Maritimer with half a brain abandoned generations ago.”
In addition to the hazards of thick ice and nasty weather, the Sea Shepherd crew face the threat of violence from the sealers and the threat of arrest under the Canadian “Seal Protection regulations” that make it a criminal offense to “witness or document the killing of a seal without the permission of the government of Canada.”
“As a kid I remember these baby killers bragging how they would slice open the beating heart of the first baby seal they kill each spring,” said Captain Watson. “They drank the hot blood and smeared it cross upon their foreheads and dabbed blood on their cheeks. They called it the “Rites of Spring.” I called them barbarians then, and I call them barbarians still, and as a Canadian and a Maritimer, I have been ashamed of this bloody evil tradition all my life and I’ve dedicated my life to shutting this monstrous obscenity down forever, and I believe that soon we will see that day when the killing is ended.”
In 2005 twelve Sea Shepherd crew were arrested after being attacked and assaulted by sealers on the ice. Despite being struck by sealing clubs, punched and kicked, not one sealer was arrested for assault. The attack was video-taped and the sealers identified yet the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated there was “insufficient evidence” to charge the sealers. The Sea Shepherd crew were jailed and fined for approaching within a half a nautical mile of a seal being killed.
Seal Defense Campaign 2008!
Sea Shepherd Crew to Shift from the Southern Ice to the Northern Ice
Captain Paul Watson and some of his crew will not rest after defending whales when they return to Australia after three and a half months of chasing and harassing Japanese whaling ships, and will instead continue on to defend baby seals.
Within days of returning to Australia in late March, they will be flying halfway around the world to Bermuda where Sea Shepherd’s other ship the Farley Mowat is docked. From there they will head North into the ice packs off Eastern Canada to defend baby harp seals from the ruthless clubs of Canadian sealers.
“There is no rest on planetary duty,” said Captain Paul Watson from onboard the Steve Irwin off the coast of Antarctica. “Half our year is spent amongst icebergs and on ice floes. Our job is to hunt the hunters to defend their victims and that takes us from the bottom of the world to the top and many places in between.”
Captain Watson has been fighting the Canadian seal slaughter all his life. It was shut down in 1984 and resurrected in 1994.
“All our victories are usually temporary,” he said. “Unfortunately our defeats are usually permanent.”
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is confident that years of risk and effort will soon pay off. The European nations are banning seal products and seal products have been banned in the United States since 1972. Sea Shepherd has been slowly lobbying to remove the markets at the same time as we have been mounting dramatic confrontations on the ice to physically save the seals from the cruel clubs of the sealers.
Patience and persistence is paying off. The seal hunt survives only because of subsidies doled out to the sealing industry by the government of Canada. It has become a glorified welfare scheme where in return for killing seals for a few weeks the sealers can qualify for unemployment insurance for the rest of the year.
“They say it’s part of their culture,” said Captain Watson who himself grew up in an Eastern fishing village in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. “It’s a culture based on the cruel clubbing of baby seals for a few weeks each year and drinking Canadian Club and beer the rest of the year. It’s a culture that any Maritimer with half a brain abandoned generations ago.”
In addition to the hazards of thick ice and nasty weather, the Sea Shepherd crew face the threat of violence from the sealers and the threat of arrest under the Canadian “Seal Protection regulations” that make it a criminal offense to “witness or document the killing of a seal without the permission of the government of Canada.”
“As a kid I remember these baby killers bragging how they would slice open the beating heart of the first baby seal they kill each spring,” said Captain Watson. “They drank the hot blood and smeared it cross upon their foreheads and dabbed blood on their cheeks. They called it the “Rites of Spring.” I called them barbarians then, and I call them barbarians still, and as a Canadian and a Maritimer, I have been ashamed of this bloody evil tradition all my life and I’ve dedicated my life to shutting this monstrous obscenity down forever, and I believe that soon we will see that day when the killing is ended.”
In 2005 twelve Sea Shepherd crew were arrested after being attacked and assaulted by sealers on the ice. Despite being struck by sealing clubs, punched and kicked, not one sealer was arrested for assault. The attack was video-taped and the sealers identified yet the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated there was “insufficient evidence” to charge the sealers. The Sea Shepherd crew were jailed and fined for approaching within a half a nautical mile of a seal being killed.
What is real? Then again, who cares?
"It may be true that my desk here is really "nothing but" a transient eddy of electrons in the flux of universal process. Nevertheless, I find that it continues to support my feet, my revolver, and my cigars all day long. What happens when my back is turned I don't know. Or much care. That's no concern of mine."
-Edward Abbey
-Edward Abbey
Wednesday
Look at me!
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
-Sidney J. Harris
-Sidney J. Harris
Friday
Spontanaity
"Our spontaneous action is always the best."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stop to consider the consequences, and you are likely to miss the best day of your life.
- Your Guide
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stop to consider the consequences, and you are likely to miss the best day of your life.
- Your Guide
Wednesday
Genius?
"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which."
- Douglas Adams
- Douglas Adams
Tuesday
I find...
"I find more and more, as I grow older, that I prefer women to men, children to adults, animals to humans.... And rocks to living things? No, I'm not that old yet."
- Edward Abbey
- Edward Abbey
Good Job Sea Shepherd - Welcome Home!
Sea Shepherd Heads Home As Whaling Season Comes To A Close
There are less than 10 days left in the Japanese whaling season, and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ship, the Steve Irwin, has reached the limit of its fuel reserves.
“We have no alternative but to retreat from the Southern Ocean,” said Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd. “We have just enough fuel to make it back to port. We’ve done everything we can do down here for this season, and it has been an enormous success. I believe we have saved the lives of over 500 whales.”
Since departing Melbourne on February 14, the Steve Irwin has covered over 6,000 nautical miles chasing the Japanese fleet from as far west as 96 Degrees East to as far east as 136 Degrees East. The majority of the chase took place inside the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters between 62 Degrees South and 65 Degrees South. In total, the Steve Irwin pursued the Japanese whaling fleet for over 3,500 nautical miles. The Nisshin Maru was tailed and harassed for over 1,800 of those miles.
Sea Shepherd can reliably report that no whales were killed during the 17-day period of February 23 to March 10. Added to the 3 weeks that Japanese whalers were prevented from killing whales in January, that brings it to a total of 5½ weeks—or nearly half the whaling season—in which no whales were killed.
“Our success will be reflected in the final kill figures,” said 1st Officer Peter Brown. “There is no doubt in my mind that we have made a significant impact on their profits this season, and I am assuming they are not very happy.”
In response to the International Whaling Commission’s condemnation of Sea Shepherd’s interventions in the Southern Ocean, Captain Watson said, “While they were in London talking about whales, we were down here actually protecting the whales. So they can condemn us until the cows come home, but I think we served our clients, the whales, as best we could, and every whale’s life saved has been a victory for us. We feel satisfied for the lives we have saved, and we feel remorse for the lives we were unable to save. The IWC members should feel ashamed for allowing Japan’s criminal poaching activities to continue.”
Sea Shepherd will work to secure a second ship to return to the Southern Ocean next season along with the Steve Irwin, although it is hoping that Japan will choose instead to withdraw from continued illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.
“We don’t enjoy this conflict with the Japanese,” said Captain Paul Watson. “We do this to defend the whales, not to offend Japan, but if we are offending Japan by defending the whales, then that is the way it must be.”
There are less than 10 days left in the Japanese whaling season, and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ship, the Steve Irwin, has reached the limit of its fuel reserves.
“We have no alternative but to retreat from the Southern Ocean,” said Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd. “We have just enough fuel to make it back to port. We’ve done everything we can do down here for this season, and it has been an enormous success. I believe we have saved the lives of over 500 whales.”
Since departing Melbourne on February 14, the Steve Irwin has covered over 6,000 nautical miles chasing the Japanese fleet from as far west as 96 Degrees East to as far east as 136 Degrees East. The majority of the chase took place inside the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters between 62 Degrees South and 65 Degrees South. In total, the Steve Irwin pursued the Japanese whaling fleet for over 3,500 nautical miles. The Nisshin Maru was tailed and harassed for over 1,800 of those miles.
Sea Shepherd can reliably report that no whales were killed during the 17-day period of February 23 to March 10. Added to the 3 weeks that Japanese whalers were prevented from killing whales in January, that brings it to a total of 5½ weeks—or nearly half the whaling season—in which no whales were killed.
“Our success will be reflected in the final kill figures,” said 1st Officer Peter Brown. “There is no doubt in my mind that we have made a significant impact on their profits this season, and I am assuming they are not very happy.”
In response to the International Whaling Commission’s condemnation of Sea Shepherd’s interventions in the Southern Ocean, Captain Watson said, “While they were in London talking about whales, we were down here actually protecting the whales. So they can condemn us until the cows come home, but I think we served our clients, the whales, as best we could, and every whale’s life saved has been a victory for us. We feel satisfied for the lives we have saved, and we feel remorse for the lives we were unable to save. The IWC members should feel ashamed for allowing Japan’s criminal poaching activities to continue.”
Sea Shepherd will work to secure a second ship to return to the Southern Ocean next season along with the Steve Irwin, although it is hoping that Japan will choose instead to withdraw from continued illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.
“We don’t enjoy this conflict with the Japanese,” said Captain Paul Watson. “We do this to defend the whales, not to offend Japan, but if we are offending Japan by defending the whales, then that is the way it must be.”
Monday
Calmness
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. Develop the mind of equilibrium. You will always be getting praise and blame, but do not let either affect the poise of the mind: follow the calmness, the absence of pride.
- Sutta Nipata
- Sutta Nipata
Captain Paul Watson Shot!
Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson Survived a Shooting Attempt in Antarctica this morning.
Today around 3:45pm Australian Eastern Standard Time in the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone of Antarctica, an attempt was made on the life of Paul Watson, Captain of the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin.
A single bullet was fired by an expert marksman at Paul’s chest, which embedded in his Kevlar vest and also damaged a metal badge worn behind the vest. Fortunately, this stopped the bullet penetrating his flesh.
The ships’ doctor was emphatic that without protection, the shot would have been lethal.
At the time the shot was fired, the Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru was moving parallel to the Steve Irwin in stormy seas. The high level of movement indicates that the shot must have been fired by an expert.
The Steve Irwin continues to track the Nisshin Maru west after it altered its northerly course.
We have received verbal confirmation that the Australian Embassy has been advised by the Japanese that a crew member on board the Nisshin Maru fired “warning” shots. In addition to the lead bullet lodged in Captain Watson’s Kevlar vest, up to seven flash grenades were also hurled by armed Japanese Coast Guard Officers, injuring two other Steve Irwin crew members.
Captain Watson is now in a comfortable condition, and no whales are being slaughtered in the name of bogus research by these illegal poachers.
No warning was given that a bullet would be fired.
Video and still footage is now available at SeaShepherd.org.
The questions that need to be asked are who fired this shot, and who gave the authority to do it?
- Report from Peter Brown, 1st Officer on board the Steve Irwin
As part of our 1% for the Planet committment, 42 Surfboards supports Sea Shepherd with 2% of our sales.
Today around 3:45pm Australian Eastern Standard Time in the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone of Antarctica, an attempt was made on the life of Paul Watson, Captain of the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin.
A single bullet was fired by an expert marksman at Paul’s chest, which embedded in his Kevlar vest and also damaged a metal badge worn behind the vest. Fortunately, this stopped the bullet penetrating his flesh.
The ships’ doctor was emphatic that without protection, the shot would have been lethal.
At the time the shot was fired, the Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru was moving parallel to the Steve Irwin in stormy seas. The high level of movement indicates that the shot must have been fired by an expert.
The Steve Irwin continues to track the Nisshin Maru west after it altered its northerly course.
We have received verbal confirmation that the Australian Embassy has been advised by the Japanese that a crew member on board the Nisshin Maru fired “warning” shots. In addition to the lead bullet lodged in Captain Watson’s Kevlar vest, up to seven flash grenades were also hurled by armed Japanese Coast Guard Officers, injuring two other Steve Irwin crew members.
Captain Watson is now in a comfortable condition, and no whales are being slaughtered in the name of bogus research by these illegal poachers.No warning was given that a bullet would be fired.
Video and still footage is now available at SeaShepherd.org.
The questions that need to be asked are who fired this shot, and who gave the authority to do it?
- Report from Peter Brown, 1st Officer on board the Steve Irwin
As part of our 1% for the Planet committment, 42 Surfboards supports Sea Shepherd with 2% of our sales.
Roadways
One road leads to London,
One road leads to Wales,
My road road leads me seaward
To the white dipping sails.
One road leads to the river,
As it goes singing slow;
My road leads to shipping,
Where the bronzed sailors go.
Leads me, lures me, calls me
To salt green tossing sea;
A road without earth's road-dust
Is the right road for me.
A wet road heaving, shining,
And wild with seagull's cries,
A mad salt sea-wind blowing
The salt spray in my eyes.
My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south and north;
Most roads lead men homewards,
My road leads me forth
To add more miles to the tally
Of grey miles left behind,
In quest of that one beauty
God put me here to find
"Roadways" by John Masefield
One road leads to Wales,
My road road leads me seaward
To the white dipping sails.
One road leads to the river,
As it goes singing slow;
My road leads to shipping,
Where the bronzed sailors go.
Leads me, lures me, calls me
To salt green tossing sea;
A road without earth's road-dust
Is the right road for me.
A wet road heaving, shining,
And wild with seagull's cries,
A mad salt sea-wind blowing
The salt spray in my eyes.
My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south and north;
Most roads lead men homewards,
My road leads me forth
To add more miles to the tally
Of grey miles left behind,
In quest of that one beauty
God put me here to find
"Roadways" by John Masefield
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