'Eco-pirate' Paul Watson is in danger of losing his boat

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian / Observer

Sea Shepherd flagship impounded in Scottish port after Maltese tuna fishery sues for £850,000 in damages.

"Eco-pirate" Paul Watson is losing a race against time to recover his flagship boat, the Steve Irwin, which has been impounded in Shetland.

The world's most radical conservationist, Watson is being sued for $1.4m (£850,000) by a Maltese fishing company, Fish and Fish, one of Europe's leading tuna processors. The law suit against Watson's Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was filed last year after activists aboard the Steve Irwin freed 800 bluefin tuna from a pen in the Mediterranean.

Watson has just 10 days to raise the bond required to release the boat, which was named after the late Australian conservationist. It has been impounded in the harbour at Lerwick ever since the company sued him for damages. By last night, the society had raised about $500,000, after a global Twitter campaign and appeals to celebrities who have helped Watson in the past.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/31/eco-pirate-paul-watson-flagship

[sasha031]

1. it is good it's in the Guardian, Watson is a hero

now the cash will defiantly be raised.

[flvegan]

2. Link to donate:

http://www.seashepherd.org/support-us/

[glinda]

3. kick kick kick

[earthside]

4. Paul Watson and Sea Shepards ...

... are probably some of the most important people on the planet today.

Are We Nearing the End of the Line for Edible Ocean Fish? - Truth-Out.org

Our economy may crash ... but unless we save the ecosystem in our oceans, well, the crashed economy will be the least of our problems in the long run.

[chervilant]

18. + a gazillion.

No duh! I have friends whose immediate concern is whether or not they'll still get to watch the shows to which they've become addicted...

[Riftaxe]

5. It sounds like the video will either clear him

or condemn him.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Be interesting to understand the 10 day deadline

It is not clear if it is part of the legal process, or what is needed for the Steve Irwin to sail on schedule.

[jmowreader]

7. It's happened before

The Canadians seized the Farley Mowat for interfering with the seal hunt, and Sea Shepherd never got her back.

I have a feeling the Steve Irwin is being "Farley Mowated." The Farley Mowat was too slow to keep up with the Japanese whaling fleet, which is Sea Shepherd's major target, so he went to the Canadian seal hunt and got his boat confiscated, then bought another boat to replace it. I have a feeling the Steve Irwin (which Sea Shepherd purchased out of a boneyard and refit to their needs) uses more fuel than Sea Shepherd likes, so they're just getting rid of it. And if you look at the circumstances regarding her seizure, you can see I'm probably right--the Med is WAY out of Sea Shepherd's normal area of operations, and he's much more known for saving whales than tunas. This method of getting rid of the boat has another tactical advantage to him: he can paint the Maltese tuna company as a bunch of evil bastards for confiscating his boat. Watson's book "Earthforce!" advocates lying to advance your cause, so this goes along with his usual practice.

You watch: in the middle of August he'll have an appeal on his website for donations to buy another flagship.

[comtec]

14. so what exactly is your position then?

Personally i think he's over stepped his bounds.. many times.
but i'm still in favor of what they ideally are trying to do.
methods aside.

where do you come down?

[MrMickeysMom]

15. I don't believe he's over-stepped his bounds...

When scientists and conservationists present the same message ... non-extinction, conservation, it's based in reason. Reason has not worked with these huge enterprises, and there is something like 40% of plankton left from the severe imbalance.

Over-fishing, mistakes like catching turtles and other species in your nets, topped by the Japanese killing whales for "scientific experimentation" ... these endanger human populations. But the only human population and message the whalers and blue fin tuna catchers understand is one of over-consumption. They rule the day. You really can't just go in there with polite logic and assist the same species that are being slaughtered and expect them to survive, can you?

It's not like they have a lobby. Who speaks for them, and who has been doing it for years and years?

[comtec]

17. OK, was just curious, and I agree wth you

I had not considered the over-fishing side.
My ex and I would discuss over fishing while living in Europe.
Fish is a major part of their diet there, far more than there, and less meat.
but yes, they do need to reduce fishing by quite a lot.

here's the thing.... at what point is less, too little?
Europeans eat less meat than we do, well less of everything in general
They have fewer children, more education, more green technology, lower consumption of energy and resources...

when do we, with our hummers and meat addictions, need to shut up?

over fishing is a global problem for sure... but when did we ear the right to judge they who already consume LESS per capita than us?

[MrMickeysMom]

27. Indeed... over-consumption knows no species...

... Look what we fat and stupid Americans accept as "meat" at fast food restaurants (present company and myself excluded, I'm sure).

If people knew conditions of chickens, they'd NOT buy cheap eggs, but free range and organic. The truth is, many cannot. I always try to eat low to the food chain, which SOME poor people can get to, but it STILL a media circus of marketing for over-produced, toxic injected, stressed out, grain fed, meat. I really don't even like buying chicken breasts at the local Giant Eagle just because of the way it was raised.

Judge not, lest YE be judged... yep!

:hi:

[jmowreader]

19. My position is I think Watson is a thug

And it has nothing to do with whaling--he also claims to have invented tree spiking, and that's enough to turn me off the guy for life.

IIRC when he lost Farley Mowat, he said the Canadians were taking a "worthless boat." It's actually a very good boat, it's just worthless to Paul Watson because it's slower than the Nisshin Maru. Well gee, guys, the boat only has 1400 horsepower and it displaces 657 tons--no wonder it won't catch the Nisshin Maru! (The Farley Mowat's top speed is 9 knots; the Nisshin Maru maxes out at 15.5 knots.) Now, most people when faced with the need to double the speed of their boat would have just stuck a note on their website: we need a 16-cylinder Detroit Diesel Series 4000 (now called MTU 4000) engine and a gearbox that will handle it, or money to buy one, plus money to install it. There are a LOT of very rich people who contribute to Sea Shepherd. Someone like Bob Barker or Ady Gil would have had NO problem coming up with the scratch to cause one of those engines to show up on Watson's loading dock. Rather, Watson decided to get his boat confiscated and ask his supporters for money for a whole new one.

[xchrom]

8. Recommend

[Judi Lynn]

9. Kicking, kicking. Rec.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[McCamy Taylor]

10. Why were blue fin tuna pinned up? Sounds unnatural to me. Were they farm raised or just trapped?

[pasto76]

12. you gotta watch more discovery channel!

they've had on Deadliest Catch style shows for just about every type of fishing. They will trap schools of tuna in giant nets, send in divers to close them up, and tow the whole deal in for processing.

They also could have been in a farming scenario. I dont know if Sea Shepherd would bother with those.

[jmowreader]

20. He probably would go after bluefin tuna ranches

The tuna ranchers go out in the ocean, catch immature bluefins and grow them out to market size in pens--not exactly what I'd call a real farm.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna will swim--and this is no shit--from Florida to Europe, up the coast to Norway, west to Greenland then back down to Florida. I can't imagine a more cruel thing than penning up that fish.

[InvisibleTouch]

11. K & R for visibility.

There's that other thread going on about the dying of the ocean ecosystem. Captain Watson is one of the people who's been trying to save the oceans and sound a warning. And this is how they treat him.

[lonestarnot]

13. Damn it to hell! Evil all around! Earth ruiners in every fucking corner!

K & R!

[Dirigo]

16. Good vs Evil

As the world knows, democratic progressive-liberal values recognize the planet is priceless and conservative values are worthless.

[go west young man]

21. Ironic considering one of the greatest posts tonight is

"Oceans on the edge of catastrophe". The sad part is we will all debate Sea Shepherd and Paul Watson when what matters is the end result.
Watson has been ahead of all of us on these issues. The world is fucked up. The Oceans are fucked up. Watson is actually doing something
about it yet a bunch of keyboard "warriors" will pick him apart rather than join the fight. The fight is being lost right in front of all of us in
a massive way yet we constantly bang on one of the few people who actually has dedicated their lives to saving the planet. To put it mildly
if your not with Sea Shepherd at this point your blind because governments and the U.N are doing next to nothing to stop overfishing and
illegal whaling. They are creeping at a snails pace. Watson is up against money and greed and they are relentless.

[theHandpuppet]

22. +100!

There's an old saying, "Don't kill the messenger." I hope it's not too late for the world's oceans, but moneyed interests are stacked against activists such as Watson.

[Pooka Fey]

23. + 1000

[GliderGuider]

25. And another +1000 from me.

SSCS is one of the beacons of moral action in the world. In they end they will probably fail, but everyone who sails with Watson will be able to look their children in the eye and say, "I'm sorry. But I tried."

[bvar22]

24. I will STAND with Paul Watson...

...AGAINST the Monied Interests that are destroying the planet,
.
.
.
.
.


....but I don't think I would sail with him.
Taking a ship with an unarmored bow into an ice-field in the Antarctic is a little over my line.

[alarimer]

26. Good.

That fucking asshole needs to go away now.

[GliderGuider]

29. Now, now.

How would you like it if someone said that about you?

[Octafish]

28. No fair.

Cap'n Watson's been doing all he can to save the planet's seas.
Fish and Fish or whatever have been doing their best to deplete them.

[Snoutport]

30. anybody know how much they've brought in? I like whales. I'd throw in ten bucks for them