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A Whale Warrior Comes Home

Environment (tags: Sea Shepherd, peter brown, whaling )

Claudia
- 146 days ago - capecodtoday.com

First mate Peter Brown leaves Sea Shepherd's Campaigns

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Claudia Peters (322)

Friday July 3, 2009, 1:43 am
Peter Brown is first mate aboard the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s 180-foot, steel-hulled ship R/V Farley Mowat, which chases Japanese whalers on the hunt for minke in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary, carrying an earnest crew dead-set on harassing the whalers out of a catch. As Brown says, “Once we’re on their tail, they can’t whale.”
While his regular gig as a director-cameraman for film and television usually finds him behind the camera, his 27-year-long hobby of volunteering with the SSCS has recently put him front and center in Animal Planet’s surprise hit series, Whale Wars. The June 5 premier episode of their second season was seen by nearly 1.2 million viewers who tuned in for an edge-of-your-seat ride in aggressive environmentalism, complete with heaving seas, deadly ice flows, flying stink bombs and returning flash bombs. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these folks are wildly committed to their cause and undeniably brazen.

Grassroots with Greenpeace

The SSCS got its start in 1977 when Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson started the Earth Force Society in Vancouver, BC and soon purchased his first ship, the Sea Shepherd. According to Peter Brown, Watson was summarily voted out of the Greenpeace power structure for being “too extreme.” Brown was working in television in Los Angeles at the time, but it wouldn’t be long before Watson and Brown’s paths converged. In 1982, Watson made a trip to Japan’s Iki Island to meet with local representatives regarding the island fishermen’s slaughter of dolphins. He called on Brown, who produced the first 25 weeks of Entertainment Tonight, but was working on a popular show called Real People at the time, to film the events, and the issue received a great deal of publicity. The fishermen stopped driving dolphins for the next four years, and a friendship was formed between the two men. “I realized then I could do something to help,” said Brown.
As an activist with the SSCS, Brown has found himself in a Japanese prison – “being served what I think might have been whale meat” – jailed with his 10-year-old son in Ecuador, imbedded with Canadian seal hunters who forced him to eat seal meat to prove he wasn’t an environmentalist, and living for 18 months on the Pacific, fighting the Macaw Indians’ plans to kill grey whales, just to name a few of his exploits.
Greenpeace, a bit too soft?

A contentious relationship with Greenpeace also exists. Brown contends that Greenpeace refuses to divulge the location of the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic Ocean – a key piece of data in the hunt for the whalers. Greenpeace locates the fleet in order to take pictures that Brown insists helps the organization make money. “The whalers don’t think twice about killing whales when Greenpeace is around,” he says. “They almost never kill a whale in front of us – they know we will go nuts and try to ram them or something.” According to Brown, the Sea Shepherd crew has even asked the Greenpeace boats to radio the location of the Japanese fleet after “they get their photos, so we can come in and actually stop them from whaling.” Greenpeace has refused, leaving the Sea Shepherd crew to pull up the Greenpeace webcam and try to figure out their latitude and longitude from the weather and condition of the seas, a tactic Brown says once worked. Repeated calls to Greenpeace press contacts in Washington, DC and New York City were not returned for comment.

Despite lengthy campaigns in Antarctica that have kept Brown away from his loved ones for the last two Christmases and left him with a crushed thumb that required titanium part-replacement, Brown shows no signs of wearying. “I’ve been on 25 to 30 missions over the years, and the Antarctic campaigns are huge,” he said. “Missions usually last four weeks or so, but during the 2007 effort I was at sea for four months.” The ship can only hold enough fuel for four to six weeks, at a quarter million dollars a fill-up, so it returns to refuel, and during one of those stops in the 2008 mission, now airing on Animal Planet, Brown got off to travel to South Africa to film Jars of Clay in concert. “I’m sure they’re going to make me look like the bad guy, but they weren’t hurting for people to come on board and crew.” It’s hard to believe Paul Watson will hold it against him.

Brown has had the opportunity to speak publicly, and, with his newfound fame from the Whale Wars series, one can bet those engagements will increase. “It’s great to get the kids riled up,” he said. “I was lucky enough to end up in a situation where I can really make a difference. People will get mad at you, people may even scream at you, but eventually the great middle ground will follow. I don’t think it’s a waste of time; if you’re passionate about something, do something about it. Take hold of an idea and don’t let it go – there is no turning back.” Brown offers a further word of advice for conservationists: “Stop bumping into the trees and try to save the forest. Once the oceans die, we’re next.”

Whale Wars airs Friday nights at 9pm on Animal Planet. Previous episodes are also available on Comcast OnDemand and on Hulu and on YouTube.

AFTER 25 YEARS OF CAMPAIGNING,I'VE DONE MY PART FOR THE WHALES

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A Whale Warrior Comes Home

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