March 18, 2024

It was a dying Sperm whale, a Cachalot (Physeter macrocephalus) in June of 1975 that put me on the path that I continue to travel upon, 49 years later.

I witnessed the murder, the explosive harpoon fired point blank into his head. I saw him fall back into the sea, thrashing in hellish agony on the surface as a scarlet gush of gore fanned out around him, staining the cold blue of the sea with a crimson steaming shroud.

I saw him swim towards me. I saw him rise up, preparing to fall down upon our small boat, to crush Fred Easton and I. I saw his ivory teeth flash before me, six inches long and curved in his lower jaw. I could have reached out and encircled a tooth with my hand. The blood from the gaping wound in his head splashed over us and I saw his eye, deep and intelligent, an eye so close I could see my own reflection. His eye captivated me, an intelligent alien creature, yet so strangely familiar. I felt in that moment an understanding that the whale knew we were there trying to save him from the deadly Soviet harpoons. I felt pity, not for himself but for us, that we could kill so piteously, so mercilessly, so thoughtlessly and for what?

I saw the effort that he made to pull himself back to avoid crashing down upon us. I saw his massive head slide back into the sea, his eye disappearing into the inky blackness, and he was gone.

He had the chance to kill us and could easily have done so.

And yet he chose not to and for that decision I am alive today.

As the sun was sinking and we were in this small boat in the midst of the Soviet whaling fleet, I was overcome with a nauseous sadness and overwhelming remorse. A part of me had died with that dying whale. I was frustrated and I was left with a disturbing feeling of antipathy towards myself and all of humanity.

These whalers were massacring thousands of these highly intelligent, socially complex, self-aware sentient beings for oil: for Sperm and Spermaceti oil, highly prized for lubricating highly heated machinery and especially prized for the construction and Maintenance of intercontinental missiles, weapons designed for the mass extermination of human beings.

It was then and there that the realization came upon me, like an epiphany that humanity was out of touch with the natural world and that we were deeply, ecologically insane.

It was on that day that my life changed course and I was overcome with an obsessive determination to dedicate my life to defending and protecting the whales.

This obsession drove me to creating Sea Shepherd, to securing a ship to hunt down and ram the pirate whaler “Sierra” and then later sinking it, to sinking half the Spanish whaling fleet, then half the Icelandic whaling fleet and sinking four Norwegian whaling ships. It was this obsession that sent me to the Southern Ocean for nine seasons to drive the Japanese whaling fleet out of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. 

It is this same obsession that has driven me to reorganize and to rebuild after a hostile takeover that took my ships, resources and list of supporters leaving me with nothing.

It’s taken two years to recover from that betrayal by five men I thought I trusted, but it is now time to continue the war against the whalers with the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Neptune’s Pirates.

Despite Sea Shepherd Global continuing to sue us and doing everything they can to discredit us, in addition to betraying our principles, objectives and strategies, this year will soon demonstrate that the passion, courage and imagination that made us what we were, and what was lost will be restored stronger and more focused than ever.

There will be no complacency and no compromising. I will continue to aggressively intervene to secure my lifelong ambition, inspired by the eye of a dying whale to eradicate the evil perversion of the murderous extermination of whales.

With the material means to intervene restored, it’s time to show those who who betrayed our movement what we have that they no longer possess.

It’s time to kick ass on the whalers once again!!!!

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