From Captain Paul Watson

March 16, 2024

Thank you to all the people who continue to support me and now support the Captain Paul Watson Foundation after my forced dismissal from Sea Shepherd.

Thank you to all the incredible veteran Sea Shepherd crew who sailed with me over the years and who now continue to support and continue to sail with the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Neptune’s Pirates.

Thank you to the veteran logistical and administrative support team that continues to work with me to secure and maintain our growing direct action conservation navy.

Thank you to all the former Sea Shepherd chapter leaders who were either forced out or quit Sea Shepherd and now continue to support the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Neptune’s Pirates.

After almost two years, it is because of your support that we have now recovered, and we can continue to do the work that we have been doing since I founded and established Sea Shepherd in 1977.

Thank you to all the people who have established CPWF chapters in the U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Estonia, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Portugal, Argentina, Denmark, Poland, South Africa, Ireland, Turkey and Uruguay. We are a global movement.

Thank you to all the Sea Shepherd supporters in France and Brazil for continuing to support Sea Shepherd France and Brazil, the only two Sea Shepherd national entities that continue to be loyal to the original Sea Shepherd position of “Aggressive Nonviolence.” 

Thank you also to Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil for continuing to fight the shameful lawsuits that Sea Shepherd Global has filed claiming exclusive ownership over the name Sea Shepherd that I created and the Sea Shepherd logos that I designed.

These men (they were all men) who betrayed me seized the ships, the assets, the membership and supporter lists and left me with next to very little EXCEPT the most important things of all.

They left me with the passion, the imagination, the courage, and the loyalty of so many thousands of people who are now monthly supporters, donors, shore supporters and crew.

There is of course a place for Sea Shepherd Global and the Sea Shepherd entities like Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand etc., that continue to support the mutinous directors of Sea Shepherd Global. There are beaches to clean, publicity campaigns and picture taking excursions to participate in, but the new rebranded Sea Shepherd Global will no longer engage in confrontations with the poachers on the high seas. They will no longer be relevant as a controversial direct-action group although they will continue to pump out the propaganda of continuing to be something that they no longer are or will be again.

It is now up to us, those of us who continue the legacy, the strategies, and the objectives to show the world that the passion, the courage and the imagination that made us what we were will now continue under another flag, another name and another adventurous crusade to defend and protect life and diversity in the sea.

In the case of Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil the Sea Shepherd original ideas, strategies and objectives will continue and this will guarantee that the Sea Shepherd name that I created will not be universally tarnished and in these two countries the Sea Shepherd flag can be flown with pride and with honour. 

It has been a difficult challenge in the face of legal assaults and revisionist propaganda, but we have recovered our strength, and this year will see us going where those who betrayed us no longer have the courage to go and we will continue to engage the destroyers of life in the sea, aggressively, courageously, non-violently and most importantly effectively, once again.

And once again, I am asking my new crew what Sea Shepherd no longer asks of them. Are you willing to risk your life and freedom to defend and protect life and diversity in the Ocean? Are you prepared to die to save the life of a whale? Our you prepared to go where the mutineers were afraid to go, to say the things that need to be said and to take actions that must be taken. If not, there is perhaps a place for you with Sea Shepherd Global but not with us, not with me and not with Neptune’s Pirates.