To Serve Leviathan

By Captain Paul Watson

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains

the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

- D.H. Lawrence

For more than 50 years, I have consistently opposed the slaughter of cetaceans. My stance is clear: I oppose anyone who kills a whale or dolphin for any reason, anywhere, at any time. This position does not discriminate based on nationality, race, or culture. It applies to anyone who inflicts physical abuse or death upon any individual of any cetacean species.

In my opinion the killing of a whale or a dolphin is murder.

Throughout my half-century career, I have opposed whaling practices in various countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark (Faroes), Iceland, Japan, Norway, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, the Soviet Union, Spain, and the United States.

I have had confrontations with the navies of the Soviet Union, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Canada, and the United States Coast Guard.

During this half-century of activism, I orchestrated the sinking of whaling ships in Iceland, Norway, and South Africa, as well as pirate whaling ships like the Sierra and the Cape Fisher. I led eight campaigns to intervene and force the Japanese whaling fleet out of the Southern Ocean. I landed in Soviet Siberia to document illegal whaling operations.

During these five decades, I was arrested many times, including in Greenland, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and Iceland.. In total I weathered seven trials, and served 10 months of my life in incarceration without a single felony conviction. I have been sued twice and won. I in turn sued the Canadian government and won.

Despite being labeled a pirate and eco-terrorist I have been presented with the Amazon Peace Prize by the President of Ecuador, the medal of the National Assembly of France, the Jules Verne Medal for Environmental activism, the Philippe Cousteau Award, honorary citizenships to the city of Paris, to St. Jean Cap Ferrat, France and the Florida Keys.

I have contributed to a long-running television show called Whale Wars and five documentary films: Black Harvest, The Edge of the World, Eco-Pirate, Pirate for the Sea, and Watson.

I have also written five books about dolphins, whales, and whaling: Ocean Warrior, The War that Saved the Whales, Orcapedia, Cetacean Nation, and Hitman for the Kindness Club.

My life has been dedicated to defending whales and their right to exist without persecution from humans.

I owe my existence to a dying sperm whale. After being fatally harpooned by a Soviet whaler, he chose not to kill me. To this day, I vividly recall my reflection in the eye of that whale. I still remember the scream of a dying female in his pod, as her hot blood streamed out from her ruptured side into the cold sea in billows of steam.

Since that day in June 1975, I have dedicated my life to the Cetacean Nations.

My detractors can accuse me of many things. They can question my motives. It does not matter. I do what I do because of a debt to the whale that spared my life half a century ago—a whale that opened my eyes to the violent and perverse slaughter of these magnificent, self-aware, intelligent, sentient beings.

When I looked into the eye of that dying cachalot, I saw intelligence, awareness, and understanding. That amazing creature understood what we were trying to do. In the reflection of his piercing eye, I saw what he saw—the pity he expressed, not for himself but for us: that we could take life so casually, without remorse or guilt. The Soviets killed whales for sperm and spermaceti oil, and one of the most valuable uses for this oil was for the construction of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed for the extermination of human beings. That was the moment I realized that modern civilization was insane and living outside the bounds of the basic laws of ecology.

Now that science stands on the brink of potential communication with cetaceans, I look forward to reaching out to them to apologize, and to assure them that not all humans are vicious predators driven by sadistic greed.

It has been my lifelong ambition to eradicate the evil of whaling, to acknowledge that cetaceans have the right to live without being violently molested, enslaved, and murdered by arrogant humanity.

I have felt the heat of their blood on my hand, smelt their fear as they fled from their killers, saw the intelligence in their eyes, heard their sophisticated language beneath the dark shroud of the sea and most importantly I saw them for what they are – sentient, self aware, creatures of thought and dreams, imagination and passion.

This is why I do what I do and will continue to do until the day I die.