Why, When, Where, Who and Where?

March 25, 2024

Some people have messaged me asking for more clarification on the rift between myself and Sea Shepherd Global and I can understand how it can be confusing, especially so when Sea Shepherd Global lacks transparency, blocks comments, revises their history and deletes critics on social media.

In this conflict the sides are as such:

I am supported by Sea Shepherd France, Sea Shepherd Brazil and Sea Shepherd UK (now the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK). Opposing me are Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Sea Shepherd Global which includes Sea Shepherd groups in Germany, Italy, Brazil and New Zealand.

I am working on a book about all this but that takes time:

So, what I will do is describe the events in a brief posting each day with the hope of making the history and the situation clear to anyone wishing to understand why this is all happening. So, over the next 7 days I will cover:

Day One: 2012 -2013 – Arrest and Exile

Day Two: 2014 – Return to Sea Shepherd: The First Mutiny

Day Three: 2015 -2017 – Retreat to France and the Rise of Sea Shepherd Global

Day Four: 2019 – The Move to Isolate and Remove Me

Day Five: 2020 – 2021 – Co-opting the Movement towards the Mainstream

Day Six: 2022 – The Second Mutiny – My Expulsion from SSCS and SS Global 

Day Seven; 2023 – 2024 Reorganizing, Rebuilding and Defending .

I will post a part of the whole story every day because it is a long story, but hopefully it will make the situation understandable. Why it happened, how it happened and who was involved?

If anyone has any questions please send me a message.

Today I will focus on the events of 2012 through 2013 where this all began,

In May 2012, I was detained in Frankfurt, Germany on an extradition request by Costa Rica,

In 2012, Japan and Costa Rica demanded my extradition while I was in Germany. Germany was about to grant the request to Japan on the Japanese charge of Conspiracy to Trespass on a whaling ship. This was based on a deal struck between Pete Bethune and the Japanese prosecutor. Pete Bethune had been arrested by the Japanese Coast Guard when he boarded a Japanese harpoon vessel. He was transported to Japan on the harpoon vessel. He was not one of my crew. He and his vessel the Ady Gil were operating independently of Sea Shepherd. I had actually advised him to not board the ship, but he said it was his decision, that he was not a member of my crew, and I had no authority over him. He was charged in Japan and was facing time in prison for trespassing, but the prosecutor offered him a deal. All he had to do was to say that I ordered him to board the ship and in return they would give him a suspended sentence. He did, and I was charged with Conspiracy to Board a Japanese whaling ship. 

In August 2012, two months after my arrest in Frankfurt I was told I would be extradited to Japan. I left Europe with the assistance of Sea Shepherd France President Lamya Essemlali, although I had no documents. I crossed the Atlantic, landed in Nova Scotia at night, crossed the border into the USA, traveled across the country to Los Angeles where my ship. the Brigitte Bardot, picked me up and we crossed the Pacific to American Samoa where I joined my ship the Steve Irwin and the command was turned over to me by Captain Sid Chakravarty. We then went down to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to oppose illegal Japanese whaling operations.

I was assisted on this risky trip by Kelly Taylor, Scott West, my brother Stephen, my sister Sharyn, Farley and Claire Mowat, Marnie & Marc Gaede, Pamela Anderson, John Paul DeJoria and Bob Talbot.

During this period Japan and Costa Rica had Interpol issue a Red Notice for my arrest. By Japan for Conspiracy to Trespass and Interference with Commerce and by Costa Rica for something called Ship Wreck endangerment for intervening against a Costa Rican shark finning operation in Guatemalan waters at the request of the Guatemalan government.

In December 2012, while enroute to the Southern Ocean the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal accused me of being a pirate and granted the Japanese whalers an injunction ordering us to stay away from the whaling fleet. This was a strange order considering my ships were Dutch flagged, operating out of Australian and New Zealand ports with crews from multiple nationalities in opposing to Japanese flagged ships operating in the Antarctic Treaty Zone.

When the injunction was issued, I resigned from the U.S. Sea Shepherd Board in order to protect the other directors.

Nevertheless, the injunction was granted, and Sea Shepherd USA and I were charged with 21 counts of violating a U.S. Federal injunction.

After the campaign which prevented the Japanese from taking 90% of their quota and saved hundreds of whales, my ships the Steve Irwin, the Bob Barker, the Sam Simon returned to Australia. In the waters off Tasmania, I transferred to my ship the Brigitte Bardot with Captain Oona Layolle and I spent the next six months in exile in the South Pacific traveling from the Great Barrier Reef to the islands on Vanuatu, New Caledonia, American Samoa and Tonga, until U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry allowed me to return to the U.S. based on an affidavit by Pete Bethune that he had lied to the Japanese prosecutor as part of the deal for his suspended sentence.

I returned to Long Beach, California in October 2013 on the Brigitte Bardot where I was met by Robert F. Kennedy Junior and Pritam Singh who helped to get John Kerry to intercede on my behalf.

At the trial in Seattle in November 2013, Judge Peter Shaw found us not guilty but a few months later the 9th Circuit Court under Chief Judge Alex Kozinski reversed the decision by Judge Shaw and declared us guilty of violating the injunction despite never meeting us or hearing our evidence.

Despite my being unable to return to the Southern Ocean I helped to organize Operation Relentless to return to the Southern Ocean in December 2013, the first Antarctic campaign that I was unable to lead. The campaign leader was Bob Brown of Australia.

Tomorrow: Return to Sea Shepherd. The First Mutiny.

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