March 12, 2024

I have spent my entire life exposing destructive activities in our ocean, from documenting crimes on the beach of Soviet Siberia to forcing the Japanese whaling fleet out of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

When I see a destructive marine eco-system threat I intervene. Always have and always will.

I never thought I would be intervening to expose the hypocrisy and the enabling of a destructive industry by the very movement that I founded decades ago.

But it must be done. What Sea Shepherd Global and Sea Shepherd Australia are doing is shameful and wrong.

The Sea Shepherd Australia and Global ship AllanKay (Formally the Austral Toothfish ship Corinthian Bay) arrived in Hobart this weekend for their “victory” tour after their donor funded hypocritical charade of a voyage to the Southern Ocean.

It was billed as the “Antarctic Defense Campaign” although it was really a Southern Ocean tourist and photography excursion.

All that money spent on sending a ship and crew down to the Southern Ocean to take pictures and to document something that they already “documented” the year before in 2023 with the same ship duplicating what had previously been thoroughly documented by Greenpeace in 2018 and Nat Geo after that.

We know what they are doing, we’ve known it for years. The question is, what are we going to do about it other than taking pictures and doing a fund-raising tour exploiting the destruction of the krill for funds to pay administrative salaries and non-productive cruises. 

How many more expensively obtained photos of krill fishing boats in the process of fishing for krill are needed to demonstrate that krill fishing ships in the Southern Ocean are fishing for krill? 

This is 2024, we can see these ships in real time from satellites. We know what they are doing. We have all the evidence, photos and videos needed to educate the public about what they are doing. 

I founded and established Sea Shepherd to take action, to stop destructive industries depleting diversity in the sea, not to snap pictures like a bunch of elite privileged adventure seeking eco-tourists.

The Sea Shepherd ship did nothing to block them, to stop them or even to harass them. This is NOT the Sea Shepherd that I created. Led by deceitful backstabbers terrified of doing anything confrontational or controversial, they are now on this “victory” aka “fund-raising tour” of Australia to hustle bucks to support what has become their growing bureaucratic mediocre mainstream feel good business.

The biggest deception is not just that they did nothing and accomplished nothing, but they are hypocritically ignoring the involvement of their corporate partner and supporter Austral Fisheries in the very krill exploitation industry they are pretending to oppose.

Here is what they did: Sea Shepherd Australia Director Peter Hammarstedt led a campaign to document the destruction caused by the krill fishery in the Southern Ocean. Sea Shepherd Global and Sea Shepherd Australia sent a ship that they purchased at a discount from the Austral Fisheries Company. Austral Fisheries has a partnership with Sea Shepherd Australia and Sea Shepherd Global.

The largest Scottish salmon company LeRøy Seafood buys krill fish meal from Aker Biomarine.

Austral Fisheries buys salmon from Lerøy Seafood.

Aker BioMarine is the world’s largest Krill fishing company that produces the fish meal feed for LeRøy Seafood.

Krill caught and processed. into fish meal by Aker BioMarine. Biomarine sells fish meal to LeRøy Seafood. LeRøy Seafood sells salmon to Austral Fisheries. Austral Fisheries is 50% owned by the huge Japanese fishing company Maruha Daichiro formally the Taiyo Fishing and Whaling Company.

Sea Shepherd Australia maintains that Austral Fisheries, their corporate partner is a sustainable fishing company.

So, what was the Sea Shepherd ship AllanKay doing taking pictures of krill fishing boats to demonstrate the destruction caused by the krill fishery when the krill is being processed by a company that helps to produce a product for Austral Fisheries, their corporate partner?

What this campaign does, a campaign that did not block, interfere with, or harass the krill fishing ships, is to deflect the association away from Austral Fisheries, because of course they are not involved because Sea Shepherd Australia has given them the “sustainable” seal of approval.

This appears to be a situation very well played by Austral Fisheries and it all began in 2015 when Austral fisheries had one of their Toothfish ships sidle up to the Sea Shepherd ships “Bob Barker” and “Sam Simon” off the coast of Africa while chasing the toothfish ship “Thunder” to demonstrate their “support” for Sea Shepherd. 

This was followed by Austral Fisheries CEO David Carter using his political connections to get Australian tax charitable status for Sea Shepherd Australia followed by donations to Sea Shepherd Australia from Austral Fisheries.

When I began to question the relationship between Austral Fisheries and Sea Shepherd Australia, I, the Founder of Sea Shepherd since 1977, was dismissed from the Sea Shepherd Australian Board of Directors. 

I’m sure none of this will be mentioned during the AllanKay fund-raising tour of Australia.

Captain Paul Watson was the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He led the many campaigns to the Southern Ocean to oppose Japanese whaling between 2002 and 2013. After being forced out of Sea Shepherd for being overly controversial, he established the Captain Paul Watson Foundation to continue the policy of “aggressive non-violence” that made Sea Shepherd famous and successful. Captain Watson continues to work with Sea Shepherd France and Brazil to aggressively oppose poaching on the high seas.