These are just some of the best videos out there today by our members and supporters! ----------------------------------

Paul Watson Interview – the Underwater Channel - Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWF369vrLuk&feature=PlayList&p=3B6DE14A0CFC79EB&index=0

Paul Watson Interview – the Underwater Channel Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMR_UIlSeF4&feature=PlayList&p=3B6DE14A0CFC79EB&index=1

What have you done – Save Whales, Seals, Dolphins….by harperc:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5OY07TLtvI&feature=PlayList&p=3B6DE14A0CFC79EB&index=2

Captain Paul Watson – by Fred (WAW):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vli-6tV_H5E

Sea Shepherd anti-whaling campaign 2007 (by Emily Hunter):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW5rfSSt8Vc

Operation Migaloo - 2007/08 - Sea Shepherd Whale Defense:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXD1CqeO4oo

Sea Shepherd for compassion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHm_busA-o

Operation Leviathan podcast 7:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdxpH4IYTGY

Operation Leviathan podcast 6:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcVNOnRLVzY

This is Sea Shepherd:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqDOOX_5J0Y

Sea Shepherd operation Leviathan 2007:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUt_1lzI3G0

Sea Shepherd defending baby harp seals 2003 (Lost Art/SealAngel):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1u1-ARanio

Japanese Whaling Research – The Pretender (by Pots5150):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKIQquVqAy8

Sea Shepherd wont back down (by Pots5150):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYeneQZLiiU

The Weapons of Sea Shepherd (Ocean Warrior extracts – pre.1995):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_6v5bcVSS4

Sea Shepherd Tribute (by dimentagon):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOFctdRllHk

Japanese whale ‘Research’ (Lies and Bad Science) – ABC catalyst:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYtecbI6ve8

STOP WHALE HUNTING (operation Migaloo 08):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K4jSJCeNto

Shark Finning and Long Lining...stop it...:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMYtuMgwNCY

What is the life of a whale worth to you? - see what Sea Shepherd has and can achieve! - by ThisIsSeaShepherd:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_djrigono0

What have you done to save the seals, whales, dolphins and the Oceans from devastating and cruel commercial exploitation?

Need motivation to support direct action by Sea Shepherd ? Well, watch this video and then visit www.seashepherd.org and show your support by volunteering or joining the Direct Action Crew!

Link:       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5OY07TLtvI

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society today issued the following official appeal to Greenpeace for cooperation on the issue of Japanese whaling in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.

An Appeal for Cooperation from Captain Paul Watson

Okay, here we go again, but nothing ventured and nothing gained.

This is the official 2008 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society request to the Greenpeace Foundation to work in cooperation with each other to defend the whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for the 2008 and 2009 Antarctic summer.

The targeted whales need all the help they can get when the Japanese whaling fleet returns to illegally slaughter endangered whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in December 2008.

During the last season we stopped them for 50% of the time and cut their quota by 50%. If only we had two ships and sufficient funding we could stop them up to 80% percent and perhaps to 100%. But we are a small organization with only one fast ship to deploy and we need to raise funds to finance the campaign.

But there is a solution. If both the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Greenpeace Foundation could cooperate in a joint coordinated effort to oppose the Japanese whaling interests we could stop the pirate whalers cold in Antarctica.

Every year Sea Shepherd has supplied Greenpeace with the Japanese coordinates when we have found the fleet although Greenpeace has refused to return the favor. And yes there have indeed been harsh words between Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace over the years but the word Greenpeace does include the word &ldquoeace” and therefore I am appealing to Greenpeace once again in the name of peaceful cooperation to work with Sea Shepherd to protect the whales.

Let the past stay in the past and let’s deal with the present with a focus on a constructive future. There really is no practical reason why Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd cannot work together.

After all, I am an original Greenpeacer and a co-founder, not just of the Greenpeace Foundation in 1972 but also of Greenpeace International in 1979.

Both Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace work towards our goals in a non-violent manner although our definition of non-violence is not harming sentient life. As Martin Luther King once wrote, “violence cannot be committed upon a non-sentient object.”

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has never caused a single physical injury to a single person in our entire 31 years of operations. Nor have we ever had any crew convicted of a felony crime anywhere in the world. And we have never been sued.

The Dalai Lama is a Sea Shepherd supporter and he describes the Sea Shepherd approach as being consistent with the spirit of Hayagriva or the compassionate aspect of Buddha’s wrath meaning that we should never injure anyone but sometimes we need to be intimidating to intervene against violence.

I don’t believe our tactics are really the reason for the refusal by Greenpeace to cooperate with Sea Shepherd. After all Greenpeace has worked cooperatively with Earth First! whose tactics against property are far more extreme than Sea Shepherd.

Sea Shepherd is even willing to accept and forgive the violence of Greenpeace that causes harm, suffering and death to sentient beings that the crew consume on the Greenpeace ships as food.

Our ships are vegan vessels and thus we have fully embraced Ahimsa in our tactics whereas unfortunately Greenpeace has not. We do not however judge Greenpeace for this and request only that Greenpeace not judge us in return for our destruction of machinery utilized in the illegal slaughter and exploitation of sentient life.

I have asked this before and I will ask it again but how can Greenpeace ever hope to promote peace between nations and between humanity and nature when Greenpeace refuses to embrace peace within its own family?

This ridiculous animosity between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd has lasted for three decades, longer than most wars between nations. In fact no one seems to remember just what the reason for the animosity is. The hostility seems to have become institutionalized. Sea Shepherd would like to see an end to this disharmony to allow both organizations to work together.

It has never been my intention to destroy Greenpeace. I am responsible in many ways for the birth and rise of Greenpeace originally, and why would I want to destroy such an achievement?

It is of interest that Greenpeace incorporated the word “foundation” in 1972 because of the book Foundation by Isaac Asimov. In that story there are two foundations, the large one and the more flexible smaller one – the Second Foundation. The role of the Second Foundation was to keep the Foundation on track and that involves strategies that include some that are tough. I have criticized Greenpeace in the past because Greenpeace needed to be criticized and that was not a negative thing although a negative response to criticism can escalate into a feud.

But feuds can be ended and I have attempted to end our feud many times over the years. But ending a feud takes both parties and unfortunately the offers have never been received and accepted and Sea Shepherd, and in particular I, have become objects of scorn and derision amongst some in Greenpeace. 

But we should agree that our petty human squabbles are trite and trivial in comparison to the violence assaulting the defenseless species of the planet. Strength lies in diversity and it also lies in unity. A movement that is both diverse and united is the most powerful of social movements.

Our ships all fly the same flag – the flag of the Netherlands. Some of my crew have served on Greenpeace ships and some Greenpeace crew have also served as Sea Shepherd crew. I myself served as 1st Officer on Greenpeace voyages between 1971 and 1977. Many of the original founders of Greenpeace like Robert Hunter, Lyle Thurston, John Cormack, David Garrick, and Rod Marining have sailed with Sea Shepherd.

So how about it Greenpeace? Together we can keep the Japanese fleet on the run. Let’s trade coordinates and relieve each other as the other ship refuels. Let’s deploy our crew and our tactics together in a united front on common ground.

You are not my enemy and I am not your enemy. The whalers and those who seek to destroy ecological harmony on this planet are our common enemy. We make them stronger when we are divided and we make them weaker when we unite.

This year presents us with a renewed opportunity to unite against the outlaw whalers of the Southern Ocean. Shall we do it?  Shall we work together in cooperation with each other? Shall we both contribute to a stronger effort and a stronger movement? Shall we fly the Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd flags side by side as we point our bows southward?

I hope for the sake of the whales and for this planet that we can and that we will.

I think it would be amazing if Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace could host a joint media conference in Santiago, Chile at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission to announce a working cooperative alliance to oppose the outlaw whalers.

My fellow Greenpeacers, (I am a lifetime member) I await your reply.

Sincerely in the Spirit of Cooperation to Defend the Whales,

Paul Watson: 'There's no rest on planetary duty'

Paul Watson has devoted his life to fighting back against those who despoil the seas - but is he a prophet or a pirate? Tim Ecott meets a controversial crusader

Paul Watson doesn't stay on dry land very much. Last year the tireless eco-warrior was at sea for 50 weeks, and this year he has spent just one week at his home in Washington State. As he puts it: "There's no rest when you're on planetary duty."

	Paul Watson: is he a prophet or a pirate?

Arranging an interview takes time, and I am asked not to discuss the whereabouts of his hotel with anyone in advance because, his press officer reveals, "there have been death threats".

When I finally meet Captain Watson, it is in an over-heated London hotel room. He is wearing a black T-shirt decorated with the logo for Sea Shepherd, the direct-action conservation group that he heads, surmounted by a skull and crossed trident and crook.

Watson is a softly spoken Canadian with a shock of grey hair - rather more Captain Birds Eye than Long John Silver. At 58, he is a little chubby to be described as a swashbuckler.

His record, however, speaks for itself. One of the original founders of Greenpeace in 1969, he left in 1977 because "the organisation got taken over by bureaucrats".

Part of Watson's grievance was that Greenpeace was less inclined to use direct action against whalers. Although proud that his membership number was 007, he called Greenpeace "the Avon ladies of the environment movement".

Since forming Sea Shepherd in 1981, Watson, a former Canadian coast guard, has commanded more than 200 voyages aimed at stopping Antarctic and Arctic whaling, illegal long-line fishing in the Pacific, the killing of seals in Canada and, more recently, poaching and shark-finning in Galapagos.

Sea Shepherd has, in his words, "boarded and rammed more ships, engaged in more high seas confrontations and sunk more ships than the Canadian navy".

Watson and his mostly volunteer crews brave storms and ice-packs, hostile governments and illegal fishing vessels. He has rammed seven ships and scuttled another eight, and come under fire several times. But he has never been convicted of any crime.

Sea Shepherd is careful to act in accordance with the UN Charter for Nature, which allows for the enforcement of international law "by nations, non-governmental organisations and individuals". Watson is clear that everything he does is sanctioned under international maritime law.

Legal or not, Sea Shepherd's tactics include bombarding whaling crews with smoke bombs and slabs of rancid butter. The butter makes the decks too slippery to work upon, but Japanese whaling crews have described the substance as "acid".

In January this year, two Sea Shepherd volunteers boarded the Yushin Maru in the Southern Ocean and chained themselves to a railing as they delivered a letter to the ship saying it was in breach of international law.

The two men were released without charge, according to Watson, on instructions from the Japanese prime minister.

"They don't want any more negative publicity over whaling than they already get," he says.

Watson's passion verges on the spiritual. His moment of revelation came in 1975 when he was trying to prevent a Soviet ship killing a sperm whale. At one point, a harpooned whale came close to sinking Watson's small inflatable boat.

"That dying whale looked right at me and chose not to harm me. It moved out of the way to avoid crushing us.

"What angered me was that the Russians were using the fine oil from the whales as lubricants in intercontinental ballistic missiles. Here were human beings killing these intelligent, peaceful and majestic creatures to use a bit of oil inside a killing machine."

Although whaling is still one of Watson's prime concerns, his crews are at the forefront of publicising the dire state of the world's marine environment. He arrests illegal traffickers in sea cucumbers and Asian fishermen who slaughter sharks for use in shark fin soup - for which there is an insatiable demand in China's new economy.

He and his shipmates are all vegans.

"I don't eat fish because there is no such thing as sustainable fishing in the world right now," he says.

"There is no industry on this planet that is as wasteful. Commercial fishermen are the greediest, stupidest people on earth. I grew up in a fishing community and I don't like saying that, but these people may in the end be the cause of our planet's demise."

British organisations such as the Marine Conservation Society and the Marine Stewardship Council would argue that certain fisheries are sustainable. Watson disagrees, maintaining that such bodies are afraid to confront the ugly reality of our dying seas.

To some, the views of a man once dubbed "Captain Nemo" smack of arrogance.

"I don't care what people say about me," he says. "My clients are the whales, the sharks and the fish populations who have no one to fight for them."

Watson talks in soundbites and aphorisms. His environmentalism is mostly self-taught, but he is widely read. For a man who doesn't give many interviews, he has a fund of quotations and philosophical mantras at his disposal.

Japanese whalers have called him a terrorist. "But what does that word mean today, when the Chinese have called the Dalai Lama a terrorist?"

Watson believes that life on our planet conforms to what he calls the three fundamental laws of conservation. First the law of diversity, second the law of interdependence, and third the law of finite resources.

"We're close to losing our essential diversity. Look at our wheat crops - we rely on a handful of grain crops and plants that we've refined and bred over hundreds of years. It only takes a new disease to come along and take out one of the building blocks and the planet will go through an environmental correction."

That's a typical Watsonian aphorism, but what, I ask, does he mean by it?

"I mean that there are too many people in the world. But we aren't essential to its survival. Worms are more important to the system than we are - they can survive without human beings but we can't live without worms. I think the system will correct itself somehow as far as human beings are concerned."

But human beings in developing countries rely on fishing to survive; in the West we are constantly being urged to eat more fish on health grounds.

"Well, people may need to eat fish," he says, "but there aren't enough fish in the sea to go round. People mocked me in 1975 when I said that the cod fisheries would collapse. Those critics are pretty quiet now."

Watson's passion may be spiritual, but he abhors religion.

"Almost all religions put us at their centre. And this world isn't just about us. We are an animal like all the other creatures on earth, and we somehow think we are the most important."

It's easy to be swept along by Watson's enthusiasm. Sea Shepherd is growing in membership, but still has only about 50,000 members worldwide, a veritable minnow compared to WWF's five million, or Greenpeace's two-and-a-half million.

But Watson is adamant that he doesn't want to emulate the larger, more corporate conservation groups. He dismisses them as "feelgood" organisations. He is equally dismissive of politicians.

"Take Ecuador," Watson observes ruefully.

"The Galapagos is a World Heritage Site and it's going down the tubes. The main island is over-run with dogs and cats, and the Navy take bribes from the illegal fishing boats. They have never arrested a single poacher. But we have, and we've confiscated thousands of illegally poached shark fins."

Sea Shepherd's newest vessel, the black-painted Steve Irwin, is a former Scottish Fisheries Protection boat that they acquired in 2006. She's around 30 years old, and has been modified for voyages to the far north and south. The exact details of her equipment and the strength of her hull are secret.

Apart from Watson and the ship's engineer, the crew of 35 is made up entirely of unpaid volunteers. One British supporter told me that they sold their house and moved back in with their parents to fund a year as a crew member:

"It was the best experience of my life, and if I could afford it I'd go again tomorrow."

For now, Sea Shepherd has more volunteers than boats to crew them with, but Watson tries to make sure that everyone eventually gets a chance to help.

I ask him if people are tired of bad environmental news? Watson looks genuinely sad.

"There really isn't much good news about the environment out there," he says finally.

"And I do get called 'Cassandra' a lot. But the thing is, Cassandra's prophesies all came true."

Yesterday on the official blog of the Australian Greens Senators, Tim Norton suggested that perhaps it would be more economically responsible for the Australian Government to fund Sea Shepherd in its efforts to fight against whaling, rather than its own customs vessel.

Sea Shepherd has been much more effective at intervening against Japan’s illegal whaling in Australian Antarctic waters than the customs vessel Oceanic Viking, which last year monitored Japanese whaling activity, but stopped short of taking any legal action to prevent the Japanese from whaling.

The blog is reprinted below from the GreensBlog - the official blog of the Australian Greens Senators

May 28, 2008

Still No Action on Whaling

By Tim Norton

Blogging Greens issues, policies and politics

Senate Estimates have shown the true lack of commitment from the Rudd Government on the fight against whaling in our Antarctic waters.

Under questioning, it was confirmed that the 2008 budget held no funding for a continuation of the customs ship Oceanic Viking (or any other ship) to monitor Japanese whaling fleets in our Southern and Antarctic oceans, making one wonder just what they are doing to do about whaling into the future. Does this mean that the Government will not be undertaking monitoring of Japanese whaling activity into the future?

Not that we can count on anything actually being done about it – after monitoring the whaling operations, documenting the slaughter with pictures, video and other media, the Australian Government have evidently decided to file this away and wait for the Japanese to stop whaling on their own terms.

The Minister for Home Services has claimed success for the operation taken out by the Oceanic Viking, when not one whale has been saved through their operations to date. So far, the only ones who have had any success in preventing whales from being killed in the Australian Antarctic whale sanctuary have been the non-government organisations Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd.

Meanwhile, the Greens continue to call on the Australian Government to close the loophole in the IWC that allows the killing of whales under the name of ’scientific research’ and to pursue the international legal case to stop the slaughter occurring in our Antarctic territorial waters.

The yearly migrations of humpback whales up the Australian coast are the mainstay of the whale-watching industry, and losing the species could have drastic effects on the tourism market on our southern coasts.
Humpbacks were hunted to the verge of extinction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, with only 3 to 5% remaining when the IWC ban was enacted in 1963. While populations off Australian waters have slowly begun to recover, the population is only a fraction of their original abundance and they are still listed as vulnerable under the EPBC Act.

The Government hasn’t been prepared to take legal action to stop the whale slaughter on environmental or humanitarian grounds and the Japanese have continued to up the ante. First they procrastinate about acting on any evidence they have collected, and now it appears they may have given up entirely – therefore creating a farce out of the original expense incurred by the Oceanic Viking mission.

Perhaps it would be more economically responsible for the Government to fund Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd directly, rather than waste Customs time with useless whale watching expeditions?

From Ocean Sentry we fully support to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, working at the same time as a website to a wide aware program, dialogue and respect to marine environment and those who inhabit.

Ocean Sentry arise from the personal need to join and collaborate with those who make an incessant effort in the battle for the right of life, with those who carry out definitive actions on the oceans in their unshakable fight against massacre of thousands of sea mammals and with people who really dwindle the cruelty of those that attack marine life.

Ocean Sentry arise as a revelation against the lack of information spread in mass media about Sea Shepherd as well as their actions on world-wide scale, unfortunately hardly known for a high sector of the population however aware of other organizations with a high media power.

Ocean Sentry call for collaboration of all those inhabitants of the world that firmly believe, because of rage and frustration, that the marine mammals deserve the greater of our respect, love and admiration and therefore tenacity in actions, beyond the demagoguery and educative propaganda, is the only way to avoid the imminent extermination which they are condemned.

Save the inhabitants of the oceans.
Ocean Sentry for Sea Shepherd

SEA SHEPHERD (EUROPE) SUPPORTERS GROUP

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THE ANNUAL DOLPHIN MASSACRE IN JAPAN.

The fishermen in Japanese villages like Taiji, go out in small boats to known dolphin migratory routes. Positioning their boats strategically, they space out to form a line and wait for the dolphins. When the dolphins arrive, the fishermen drop long metal pipes into the water, and by banging on the pipes they create a wall of sound. The sound interferes with the dolphins' ability to navigate - it disorients and panics them. The dolphins swim away from the sound, and the fisherman manoeuvre their boats herding them into a small shallow bay. Once in the bay, nets are drawn across the mouth of the bay to keep them penned in.

The fishermen usually injure a few of the captive dolphins with a spear thrust or a knife slash - dolphins will not abandon these wounded family members.

Trapped in the shallow water, the dolphins mill about trying to stay as far from land as possible until the next morning. In the morning, the fishermen draw the nets in, forcing the dolphins closer to shore where they kill them by stabbing and slashing them with knives and hooks. The dolphins thrash about for as long as six minutes each as they slow