'Whale Wars' on Animal Planet HD - Page 3

This show may really get entertaining if the Whale ships come back with a fast protector ship, installed w/ giant barrelled "Slime Goo" cannons, to cover the Sea Shepards ship in green glop, & The Sea shepards also have similar (biodegradable) secret weapons themselves ...
Add one of those "Bonzai obstacle course" type announcers ......

They should get those super-loud "sirens" that some cruise ships apparently have to thwart pirates. A few months ago there was a story about a cruise ship that successfully used one.

Yeah, we noticed the same thing an episode or two ago and also thought we could make out enough to guess she was "Asian".
The one time I recall them getting a tip, which turned out to be a setup, in my opinion, they acted like it came in via telephone.

having seen last night's show & part of the previous one(and no others) a few thoughts:

reasons why Watson's "gunshot" wound may have been faked:

the recovered projectile looked like no handgun round I've ever seen. more like a large pellet gun round.

if the Japanese intended to, as claimed by 1st Mate/fellow d-bag, "assassinate" him I can only think a rifle would have been employed given the circumstances. In which case Watson would be dead. the body armor he was wearing looked to be Level IIA at best, and would not defeat any rifle round.

his wound(the small puncture) looked nothing like any wound suffered by a gunshot victim wearing body armor. it generally leaves one mother of a bruise.

other thoughts:

the girl(my assumption) covering her face may well be a Japanese national & therefore fears being subject to a whole laundry list of charges under Japanese law should her identity be revealed(remember she was speaking in Japanese to the captain of the Nishiin Maru).

once more the international press shows how eager they are to drop to their knees in pursuit of a controversial story that fits their PC leanings. Watson is certainly aware how pathetically easy it is to manipulate the news.

instead of pitching flash-bangs by hand I would like to see the Japanese install some gas-grenade launchers-the turret type used by Korean riot police on their vehicles. saturating the decks of Watson's rustbucket with pepper gas might give pause(& let that sanctimonious Swede 2nd mate choke on his nonsense).

BTW some may wish to rent Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t Season 1. the final epi.("Environmental Hysteria") gives a brief but telling look at Paul Watson's past(and violent) anti-whaling actions. far from the semi-peaceful tree-hugger he portrays himself to the media he has far more in common with anarchists like the ELF & ALF(and no qualms about using any ship under his command as a lethal weapon.)

Noticed on the japan whaling ship there was a website printed on the side. It is a great perspective from the other side of this, plus there are a lot of videos/pics taken of the sea sheapards from the japanese boat. It also has a list of of the terroist type stuff this captain has been doing for years. Here is the site in case you didn't catch it.

icrwhale dot org

(i cant post urls)

Despite how I feel about the issue of whaling, I agree that the Japanese have every right to respond. But to call these people morons weakens your argument, and the same goes for others who like to name call, stereotype, and relive their conservative high school group think days. Everyone I have seen on the show has appeared very intelligent and conscious of what they are doing. In other words, to feel sorry for them is absurd as they are clearly doing what they feel is important.

The captain makes no excuses for his actions, nor do the other crew members.

I've tried to approach this show with an open mind, I see both sides, and legality is unclear. The Japanese have a quota, which I would argue is legal under international agreements. What is perhaps not legal is where they are hunting. The crew sees themselves as the only people willing to enforce certain laws and treaties.

I was hoping that AVS of all places would approach this with more care and intelligence. To see the dismissive language used like tree huggers, hippies, morons, et cetera is frankly a real shame from my POV. You can't argue with ignorance. If people want to live in a world without balance, that's fine, but personally I feel these "eco terrorists" offer a necessary counterbalance to what the Japanese do.

Seriously, this is the best comedy on right now.

If he was shot why would they have not gone for his head? Haven't the Japanese seen Dumb and Dumber?

You should give the posters here more credit, DrCrawn. Maybe we have come to conclusions we have about these people absolutely because we went in with an open-mind and concluded that there definitely seems to be something flaky about these people. Just because it doesn't match up with your conclusions, doesn't automatically make you the authority to suggest we should readjust our viewpoints to better match up with your evidently "superior" interpretation of the events.

It's not hard to engender sympathy just being on the side of the whales, in the first place. You have to suspect that there is seriously something unattractive about these people to create a sense of revulsion, despite their allegiance to the whales.

You'd have to have blinders on to watch the show and not come to the objective conclusion that the captain of the Sea Shepherd is a moron. The way he treats the crew, and the way he tells them that going on a dangerous mission is up to a crew vote - then pouts and whines like a baby when the vote doesn't go his way......

I'm all for enforcing the whaling laws - I'm not for encouraging some egocentric moron on a power trip to continue to recruit "expendable" ideologues to be the point of his spear.

This is just my opinion. I can understand why anti-whalers want to protect the species. They are some of the most beautiful creatures in the ocean. Also, the oceans are a public good, which is very prone to overuse. Because no one "owns" it, the normal tendency is a race to fish as much as possible before someone else does. So without the anti-whalers, there is a very good possibility the ocean would be over fished (or whaled as the case may be), which would be a tragedy.

That being said, I think the Sea Shepards harm their cause more than help it. First, this show has shown the "fantasy" world they operate in. Just one example, they send over two crew mates (with overnight bags) and refuse to take them back, then claim that they were kidnapped. That stunt convinces me that they would be perfectly willing to stage a fake shooting. The captain has no regard for anyone else other than him (and only some little regard for a few that think like him).

In the real world, you can't just have your way with everything, just because you think you are right. For example, this whole idea that what the Japanese is doing is illegal. It clearly is not. The Japanese, a sovereign nation, bound itself to an international treaty. That treaty bans most commercial whaling except for a small quota that they label "scientific research." It doesn't matter what the label is... they could call it Star Wars fishing, the fact is that they are allowed to whale for a certain amount of whales every year. Now, the sea shepards claims that they are fishing in a sanctuary. Yes, Australia declared that area a sanctuary. However, Australia does not have the authority to declare those waters off limits to Japan. The sanctuary ruling only applies to Australian citizens, not to other nations. The claim that what the Japanese are doing is illegal is, just like with most things the Sea Shepards claim, a twisting of the truth for PR. (Though, I don't deny that the "scientific research" is mostly just a PR way of allowing some commercial fishing.)

So, the point of all of this, is that they only way they are going to stop Japanese whaling is to convince the Japanese to give it up themselves. There is no way they are going to convince the Japanese to submit to Australian law. Frankly, the Japanese were duped into signing the treaty anyway, by incentives from the US that we reneged on.

So in the end, Greenpeace has it right. Run a public info campaign in Japan and get enough citizens there to demand a stop, and they will reach their goal. What the Sea Shepard do seems for their own benefit. And it just hardens their opposition's opinions. They come across as so unreasonable that some of their actions during the season, must have set back their cause by years. They are too focused on the means and are sacrificing the ends.

I started to watch this show mostly because I like the Deadliest Catch. I kept watching it for the comedy of they silly people pretending to be sailors. I'll keep watching because it is entertaining. However, as far as agreeing with them, I just can't. They are just too unreasonable.

Like I said, just my opinion.

I think for scientific research the numbers they kill is pretty high. It's in the high 600's.

I was thinking watching the last episode someone should do a Sea Shepards vs. Deadliest Catch show.

Yes, I agree, that number is probably higher than necessary for strictly scientific research. Their quota is almost double the 600 or so that they catch. It seems pretty clear that "scientific research" is just Political Speech for "internationally regulated and allowed commercial whaling."

LOL that would be hilarious. The Deadliest Catch guys would pwn the Shepards. Those Deadliest Catch guys are ironmen.

I think the only true morons are the Red Hot Chilipeppers....why would they waste their money on this? They could put that money to a much better cause.

Not that the captain had much of my respect, but he lost it all when he refused to board a ship, but instead threw a boat of women at it.

The other "gimmick" about this law is it was written to say that the whales they use for their research can't be just wasted when they're done. I mean, what's the point of that ? That loophole had to cause grief for the anti-whaling people ! And the best part is, the Japanese (and likely others) have a "whale-meat processing ship" just to take care of the carcasses !

I don't recall why I first watched the show... I do "like" whales because they are pretty unique creatures but I'm sorry Sea Shepards, I can't support your methods. I think most people watching would see them as "not all there". Sadly, it seems that most animal-rights types seem to be lacking certain, ummm, qualities.

They probably used government research grants to pay for the processing ship.

Obviously everything I said went over your head, and that's fine I wasn't expecting anything else. I see both sides to the issue and try to approach it with maturity, something lacking in this thread. You want to keep calling people morons and anyone who disagrees blind, then ok have at it. Honest, it doesn't bother me one bit. It's easy to pile on and take the easy position, but life is more complicated than that. Saying he is on a power trip is rather absurd. It's just your way of rationalizing behavior you either can't understand or don't agree with. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head, and plenty of crew have left in protest. If the whaling laws were being enforced (example: in specific "protected" areas) then these guys would not be doing what they are doing. I'm sorry that I hurt so many people's feelings by taking an alternate viewpoint. When I see name calling, stereotyping, and bashing of people with perhaps more liberal viewpoints than the norm, I call that ignorance.

That's an excellent point..... As much as the "crew" is for the cause of saving whales, if you watched the episode where they docked and people left while new people joined up, it's very common that many don't stick it out (for whatever their reasons). Sadly, the full-time crew blows them off too.

I imagine one reason they are unconcerned with crew turnover is because of a massive line of volunteers waiting to partake in the "shepard experience". It matters little if a new crewmember stays or goes, because there is definitively somebody waiting at the harbor to replace them. It only behooves them to keep up the churn because that simply increases the flow of willing volunteers at the level of dedication to embrace martyrdom at the whim of the captain (sounds eerily similar to another dangerous group on this planet, you think?).

If the volunteers were more irreplaceable (due to experience or unique expertise to the ship's fundamental operations), I think they would be more concerned about keeping them (safe and sound).

Good because they are nothing more than vigilante pirates illegally attacking and boarding ships of the japanese who are fishing an approved quota of whales. I see no clear arguement on the sea sheppards side. Even wether or not the area they are fishing is off limits is in question. If they do not like the laws about taking whales for research then fight to have them changed.

No doubt that any "agreement" crew members sign acknowledges that they're fully aware of any risks and that they'll hold neither Watson, nor the organization responsible.

In what country ?