Pall Watson and Other Anti-Whaling Activists Actions Against Whale Hunting

It is evident that whaling and whale watching cannot co-exist. Whaling has no clear impact on fish stocks and has proven to be unprofitable and harmful of Iceland’s otherwise global image. The League of Nations raised concerns about the excessive killing of the whale stocks and called for conservation in 1925. This eventually led to the Geneva Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which started in 1931 but was not enforced until 1934 and was completely ignored by Germany and Japan. The environmental group Greenpeace pioneered anti-whaling activism in the form of direct action. Paul Spong a New Zealand scientist who once studied the intelligence of orcas. Then Greenpeace director Robert Hunter the organization should confront Russian whalers in the Pacific. They gained vital information on the coordinates of whaling fleets from the Bureau of Whaling Statistics in Norway. With this information, Greenpeace sailed out aboard the Phyllis Cormack, named after the wife of its original owner.

After Pall Watson left GreenPeace with funding and support from Cleveland Amory acquired a 779-ton deep-water trawler and renamed the ship, the Sea Shepherd. The bow of the ship was reinforced with many tons of concrete and set out for the North Atlantic to confront the infamous pirate whaler, Sierra. On July 15, 1979, the Sea Shepherd found the Sierra which is a whaling ship near Oporto, Portugal and chased the whaler to the port of Leixoes. Sierra pretended to enter the port as if to dock and avoid further confrontation. However, as the Sea Shepherd entered the port the Sierra turned and fled leaving Watson to deal with the Portuguese harbor pilots who boarded the ship to guide her in, and the harbor officials who planned to detain the activist vessel. Fourteen members of the crew were unwilling to continue and Watson left them ashore taking the Sea Shepherd out with a crew of three after the Sierra.

When Watson caught up with the Sierra he put the concrete reinforced bow to work and rammed the pirate whaler. The first strike landed at the bow of the Sierra in a failed attempt to knock out the harpoon gun. For the second and final blow the Sea Shepherd rammed the Sierra amidships leaving a large gash in the pirate whaler's hull. Despite the damage the Sierra limp back to Leixoes but hundreds of thousands of dollars of repairs would be needed to make the ship sea worthy again. August 9, 1981, Paul Watson led a new crew aboard the Sea Shepherd II from Nome, Alaska into the territorial waters of the Soviet Union. When the activists arrived at the Soviet whaling station village of Loren they quickly discovered that the whaling operation had been dedicated to producing feed for a commercial mink farm, complete with non-aboriginal blonde haired, blue eyed Russian workers. They managed to film and photograph the whaling station. The evidence was later turned over to Congress.

Whaling has been a large cause of the mass extinction of whales. Anti whaling activist have significantly slowed the mass killing of whales. Whales are one of the most largely protected animals in the world. Which in turn has led to more realization of what is going on in the oceans of the earth.