December 1, 2023

On this my last day of my 72nd year I am onboard the John Paul DeJoria in the English Channel in pursuit of super trawlers.

We have three of these huge ocean killing factory ships in the area but the one we’ve decided to go for is the Alida, a 99-meter Dutch ship whose captain appears to have some rather inflated opinions about us being a threat to him personally.

On his Instagram page under the name of Bert (bert_plug) he posted this message:

“Good afternoon, I am the skipper of the Alida. I am very disappointed with the spread 9of untruths and it personally affects me enormously because you express what you suggest. What image do you have of us that we practice our profession with disrespect.? I can tell you that this is certainly not the case, but what do my words mean? I just wanted to write this down because I don’t like lies. I have an old proverb, improve the world, but start with yourself. Good luck.”

We are mystified to his references to lies about his ship and company. The Alida is a massive 3,274 ton industrial Dutch fishing factory ship presently engaged in plundering the waters between Great Britain and France. It’s a trawler with a huge net capable of hauling in 7,000 tons of fish. What we have reported are simple the facts about his ship and operations.

Last night when he discovered that I was onboard he sent a 2nd message:

“If I reported Paul Watson is a murderer every day, everyone would believe him to be one at some point. I am a skipper on such a “super trawler” we cannot defend ourselves against your platform of unjustified suggestions, but we are any easy target for your cowardly act, I think you might know better and I hope so. Last week there were people drowning in the English Channel just a stone’s throw from the Whale, who was also aware of it and sailed right past it. Anyway, improve the world, but start with yourself!!”

I think he was referring to our vessel the Walrus (not the Whale) which was documenting their operations last week and although we heard nothing about people drowning or an SOS being issued, the Alina was close by to the Walrus and should have acted to rescue any people in distress if they were aware of such. As it turned out it was a fabrication.

I’ve never murdered anyone, but Skipper Bart appears to be of the school of Joseph Goebbels who said that if you tell a lie often enough everyone will believe it which suggest that Bart is using a Goebbels propaganda tactic to discredit me. I’m not sure what our cowardly act is. So far, all that has been done is to have the Walrus document their activities. Not sure what a platform of unjustified suggestions is but one thing for certain is that the Alida is one of many super trawlers engaged is stripping life from the sea and as a result there has been a great diminishment in sea life as a result.

This Ocean Killer campaign is being led by Sea Shepherd France President Lamya Essemlali. She has been opposing the destruction by these ships of ecological mass destruction for years. She documented the dumping of 100,000 blue whiting and she documented and exposed the killing of thousands of dolphins by the smaller trawling fleets.

The huge bycatch of non-targeted species is alarming, and the diminishment of the numbers of fishes, seabirds and cetaceans has been observed year after year.

It is because of this relentless diminishment that cetaceans and seals having been dying of starvation on the beaches of France and the British Isles.

What we are seeing here is total war on biodiversity by a very few greedy companies that exist in a world of subsidies and quotas decided politically, economically, and not scientifically.

A tragic business of short-term investment for short term gain by the few at the cost of many.

As small fishing boats are restricted from leaving port, fishermen along the coast of European nations can see these monstrous vessels vacuuming life from the sea with huge nets pulling up the mangled bodies of small fishes to be rendered into fish meal to feed pigs and chickens on factory farms and salmon on aquatic concentration farms.

These ravenous monsters must be shut down and the sea must be allowed time to repair the appalling damage that we have inflicted upon oceanic life.

Skipper Bert ended his message to us, saying “improve the world, starting with yourself.”

And that is exactly what we are doing, and we just must smile at the absurdity of a super trawler captain giving advice on improving the world as he works every day to destroy that very world. It seems to be a lie that he tells himself every day because as he said, if he repeats the lie everyday people will believe it and it appears, so will he.