Part Two of Seven Parts on What Happened With Sea Shepherd? 

Why, When, Where, Who and Where?

March 26, 2024

I had resigned from the Sea Shepherd Board of directors in December 2012 in the wake of the U.S. Federal 9th Circuit Court issuing an injunction to Japan to keep our ships away from the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. I did this to protect the other directors of Sea Shepherd from being legally associated with me because there was no way that we were going to observe this injunction and watch whales die.

I had crossed two oceans and continent and five countries without papers to rejoin my ships in the South Pacific. Judge Alex Kozinski o

I stepped down as the commander of the campaign and our four ships for the same reason. I put Peter Hammarstedt as captain of the “Bob Barker” and Sid Chakravarty as captain of the “Steve Irwin”. Making Peter Hammarstedt the captain of the Bob Barker was a mistake because like myself, Hammarstedt was a U.S. citizen and this made him subject to charges of violating the injunction. I later informed the court that Peter was captain because I made him a captain. It was not his decision it was mine and he was not charged. The 9th circuit later ruled that I was always in charge and focused their attention on myself and the U.S. directors.

The smartest thing that I had done prior to the campaign was to secure director’s insurance. The legal bills fighting the injunction would exceed 5 million dollars and without that insurance, Sea Shepherd in the United States would have been finished and some of the directors would be held liable despite not being involved with the decisions I was making in the field.

After my forced exile in the Southern Ocean and the Pacific and having been allowed to return to the USA thanks to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and after the trial where Judge Shaw found the directors and myself not guilty, I moved to Vermont and out of the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit. Pritam Singh who had been a Sea Shepherd supporter since 1989 offered me a place to stay and helped with the next emerging problem.

That problem was the then Board of Directors. Except for my daughter, Peter Reiman and Ben Zuckerman, the majority of the Board decided to not allow me to return to the Board. While I was in exile, they sold our helicopter and tried to sell the ships. Fortunately, I had transferred ownership to Sea Shepherd Australia prior to the campaign.

It was the opinion of the Board that I was too radical to return, too confrontational and too controversial. They even appointed a new Board member who was associated with the captive dolphin industry. I met with this new Board member; someone I did not know to ask for his vote. His reply was “that’s not going to happen Paul. Things are different now. You’ll have to move on.”

I was astounded, Except for this stranger, I had trusted all of the Board members and considered them to be close friends. I was mystified why they would turn against me. The answer was a combination of fear and power. They liked being in control and they were afraid that my actions would once again put them into legal jeopardy. 

I told them that fear had no place in Sea Shepherd. What I called fear, they called fiduciary responsibility and said they had an obligation to the organization to protect it from me.

I replied that the only obligation we ever had was to our clients in the sea.

Peter Reiman, and my daughter Lani were removed from the Board,

And this is where Pritam Singh intervened. He asked that Dr. Roger Payne join the Board. Having a whale scientist on the Board was something that the now conservative Board members could not resist, and he was eagerly accepted. Unbeknownst to them, Pritam had recruited Roger for his vote. We only needed one more vote and Pritam invited a Board member to Vermont and convinced him that Sea Shepherd would give him a boat for his concern about the exploitation of tropical fish in Hawaii. With that 2nd vote secured, Roger Payne put forth a motion to have me rejoin the Board. In response three of the Board members, the ones most adamant about not letting me return, resigned.

I now was able to return to the USA Board. I was still a member of the Board in all the other countries.

Pritam had also established Sea Shepherd Global in 2013 placing Alex Cornelissen in charge. Sea Shepherd Global would be based in Amsterdam and would coordinate the operation of the ships and campaigns.

The Directors for Sea Shepherd Global were Alex Cornelissen and Geert Vons from the Netherlands, Jeff Hansen the CEO of Sea Shepherd Australia, Lamya Essemlali, the President of Sea Shepherd France, Peter Hammarstedt and myself. 

Both Alex and Peter pledged their loyalty to myself and the cause and told me they, unlike some of the previous Board members would never betray me and would always have my back. I had no reason to doubt them. They were seemingly dedicated and committed to our established principle of aggressive non-violence and direct action.

I was concerned about Geert Vons. He and I had worked to make a simpler version of the Jolly Roger Logo that Sarah Borg and I designed in 1991, nine years before Geert became involved with Sea Shepherd. He wanted me to publicly acknowledge that he was the sole creator of the Jolly Roger logo. I refused. He them simplified the traditional logo of the Humpback whale and dolphin designed by Steve Cepello. in 1985. I had commissioned Steve to make that design and neither Steve nor I authorized Geert to make changes to that design. He seemed obsessed with being recognized as the sole creator of the Sea Shepherd logos. (In 2024, the French Court ruled that he was not the creator of the logos after he sued Sea Shepherd France and me for using our logos.)

Thus in 2014, Sea Shepherd was once again a movement of independent national entities. The ships were registered under the Dutch flag.

I became President of Sea Shepherd USA once again.

When people ask how did Pritam Singh become so significant? The answer is that he was instrumental in arranging my return from exile back to the United States and instrumental to my returning to the Sea Shepherd Board in the United States. He also hosted the Sea Shepherd summit in Vermont in June of 2014. 

He had earned my gratitude and respect.

In July 2014 I moved to France to work with Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Global while continuing to be President of Sea Shepherd USA. Susan Hartland became the CEO of Sea Shepherd USA.

I also moved to France to be with my girlfriend Yana because she was unable to secure a Visa to the USA because although she was resident in France, she had a Russian passport.

It was in 2014 that I decided that Sea Shepherd needed to address the issue of protecting the endangered Vaquita and to continue to address the killing of dolphins in Taji Japan, the killing of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands and the continued illegal whaling operations in the Southern Ocean. I was also concerned with the proliferation of salmon farms in British Columbia and wanted to support the work of Dr. Alexandra Morton. I was also very much concerned with the outlaw toothfish fleets in the Southern Ocean

The difficulty for me was because I was still subject to the Interpol Red Notice, I was unable to travel outside of France and the United States. Canada had made it clear if I returned to my home there, I would be extradited to Japan.

This prevented me from leading campaigns at sea. In 2014, Captain Sid Chakravarty took the “Sam Simon” from New Zealand and Peter Hammarstedt took the “Bob Barker” from Australia in pursuit of the Toothfish boat “Thunder” in the Southern Ocean. I was forced to remain onshore in an advisory capacity.

I also launched the sailing boat “Martin Sheen” with Oona Layolle of France as Captain in preparation for a campaign to protect the endangered Vaquita.

By the end of the year it looked like things were back on track.

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