Sea Shepherd are a conservation group run by Paul Watson, a man who was expelled from Greenpeace - the organisation he helped to establish - for being too radical. These days he can be found mostly cutting about in the Antarctic reserves ramming whaling ships and getting shot at. We managed to catch him for an interview while he was in Melbourne re-stocking on vegan snacks and Kevlar.

DP: So you’re whale-saving pirates who, among other things, intercept, damage and sometimes sink vessels that are illegally whaling in protected waters, right?

Captain Paul Watson: The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is not a protest organisation. We are an interventionist organisation that intervenes against illegal activities exploiting marine wildlife and habitats. We do ram and sink vessels on occasion if they are involved in poaching operations.

Ships sunk by Sea Shepherd vessel the Farley Mowat.

DP: Can you tell us about any of the close calls you’ve had in your time at sea?

CW: Over the years we have been in many confrontations. We have been shot at, rammed, beaten and we’ve been jailed although never convicted of anything serious. I had a bullet miss my head by an inch in the Faeroe Islands in 1986 and the Norwegian Navy fired at us and dropped depth charges under our ship in 1994. We’ve had confrontations with the Portuguese Navy in 1979, the Soviet Navy in 1981, the Norwegian Navy in 1994, the Danish Navy in 2000 and the Canadian Coast Guard last month. We have sunk whaling ships and this year we harassed the Japanese whaling fleet for three months to prevent them from taking half their illegal quota. Our most dangerous confrontations have been with Canadian sealers. I was badly beaten in 1995 in the Magdalen Islands and beaten numerous times over the years by the Mounties and the fisheries officers.

Australian crew member Ralph Lowe (left) and former Dutch police officer Laurens de Groot (right) in a confrontation with 'research' whaling ship the Nisshin Maru.

DP: What are the three most dangerous situations that you’ve found yourself in?

CW:

1. 1995 when I survived a fight between myself and three hundred sealers in the Magdalen Islands. I took down three with a stun gun but I suffered a few cracked ribs and severe bruising. I was saved from being killed by the intervention of a Quebec police SWAT team.

2. 1981 when we landed on a beach in Soviet Siberia to document illegal whaling activities. We were shot at and threatened but managed to escape out of Soviet waters.

3. 1994 when the Norwegian Navy fired on us and threatened to sink our ship. I called their bluff and told them to go ahead and sink us and they backed down.

Members of the Japanese Coast Guard throw flashbang grenades at a Sea Shepherd vessel.

DP: Would you like to describe the incident in which you were allegedly shot by a Japanese marksman? How do you respond to claims that this incident is a hoax orchestrated by Sea Shepherd?

CW: I don’t know about this allegedly bit. The bullet was real and the hole in my Mustang suit, my Kevlar vest and my smashed badge are hard evidence. I was interviewed just before the incident and there was no hole and no bullet. I had a cameraman beside me when I was hit and he documented the bullet being removed by the doctor and the doctor examining my bruising. The Japanese originally reported to the Australian government that four shots had been fired and then said that no shots had been fired after it was reported that I had been hit. The four shots were also recorded on audio tape by the Animal Planet documentary crew.

It’s hard to film a gunshot but there is the immediate before and the immediate after and the film certainly shows that there was a real bullet in my vest that was not there a few moments before.

However, I’m not really concerned what people say. Those who say I was not shot support whaling and of course that is what they will say. Besides, I’m still alive so it’s not that important what people believe.

Captain Watson moments after a Japanese marksman allegedly shot him in the chest, a bullet buried in his Kevlar vest. The Japanese deny that any that shots were fired during in incident.

DP: Has the incident changed the way that you conduct your actions at sea?

CW: Not at all. A police officer friend of mine who donated the Kevlar vest that stopped that bullet is donating a replacement.

DP: What are your feelings on the March 7th agreement to ban Japanese whalers from whaling in the Antarctic reserves under the guise of research but allow them to kill 150 minke whales within their own waters? Do you think this is a good compromise?

CW: Our objective is to stop the killing of whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. I will be happy to see them out of the sanctuary. They may need to save face and this compromise will help them to do that. They are already killing 150 whales illegally in their own waters so it won’t change that situation except to make it legal.

DP: Do you believe that whaling and the hunting of other marine mammals will ever come to an end? Do you accept sustainable hunting as a part of some cultures?

CW: I am hopeful that we will evolve to a point where we will leave barbaric behaviour like whaling and sealing behind us. I get encouraged when I see Star Trek and other science fiction films and shows that depict the future as vegetarian. Vegetarianism is the ultimate measure of civilized behaviour.

DP: Some have said that Sea Shepherd is a violent organisation and that your methods of direct action are counter-productive. How do you respond to such criticism?

CW: We have never caused a single injury to any person in three decades of operations. We are not violent. We oppose violence. Martin Luther King once said that violence can only be inflicted upon sentient beings, not property. His Holiness the Dalai Lama supports Sea Shepherd and he gave me a little figure called Hayagriva which symbolized the compassionate aspect of Lord Buddha’s wrath. He told me “you never want to hurt anyone but sometimes when they cannot see enlightenment you scare the hell out of them until they do.” We are aggressive and we do destroy property that is illegally used to take life and I view this as an act of non-violence... aggressive non-violence if you like.

The Steve Irwin.

DP: What other environmental issues are you passionate about?

CW: I am a deep ecologist and I believe that if we are going to survive we must live in accordance with the three basic laws of ecology. (1) The law of diversity (2) the law of interdependence and (3) the law of finite resources. I think the number one threat to our survival is the loss of biological diversity and the number one cause of this is human population growth. So I am for lowering human populations (voluntarily of course) and for protecting diversity of species.

DP: I suppose you’re like a modern day, anti-Ahab? Do you have some philosophical verse for us?

CW: Here’s a quote from Melville that I like: “All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever present perils of life." And here is another verse I like from Walt Whitman: "Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only, Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me, For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all."

As for being an anti-Ahab, I prefer to be looked on as a modern day Captain Nemo.

DP: If Sea Shepherd had a theme tune, what would it be?

CW: Well we sometimes play Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries prior to ramming a whaler, just for fun.

All Photos and Video Courtesy of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

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You can watch Sea Shepherd being attacked by the Japanese coastguard below: