Whales, Cows, Pigs, Cars and Motorbikes

Whales, Cows, Pigs, Sheep, Fish, Chickens, Dogs, Cats, Guinea Pigs, Kangaroos, Snakes, Crickets and any other life-form you care to mention; somewhere in the world, someone is eating one right now.

That, dear reader, is the argument most regularly put forward by the apologists for whale murder who seem to appear en masse every time a campaigner highlights the atrocities perpetrated against ocean wildlife in the killing fjords of the Faroe Islands and the killing Cove of Taiji.

It is not, they will tell you, the whale murderers who have the problem, it is us, the stupid, hippy, tree-hugging, eco-nutters who fail to understand that these poor, impoverished people have to kill to survive. We fail to understand that it is traditional for them to kill whales. To top it all, they will tell you that if we don't protest against battery farms (remember when they used to just be for hens - did you know that pigs and cows are factory farmed as well now?) then we are being hypocrites for campaigning against unnecessary and extremely cruel whale murder.

I am going to deal with that last point in today's blog. Future blogs will look at the ridiculous claims for "tradition" and the even more ridiculous claims for subsistence, coming from 2 of the richest nations on the planet.  You can be sure that the people of the Faroe Islands or the fishermen of Taiji have neither need to survive on forage nor any demonstrable adherence to tradition in a material form other than the barbarities which they inflict on defenceless animals using rather non-traditional tools to do so.  For now, let us deal with the hypocrisy challenge.

Stealing cars is a crime. So is stealing motorbikes. Both modes of transport. Both could be said to be similar.

If I witness someone attempting to steal a car and step in to stop it does it make me a hypocrite if I don't step in to stop some other criminal attempting to steal a motorbike at the same time? Let me take that a bit further. If, while I was concentrating on the car crime, I knew that there was someone else concentrating on the motorbike crime and therefore my assistance was not required - am I still a hypocrite? 

Does anyone think the respective owners of the car and the motorbike actually care who stopped their vehice being stolen? Do you think either owner said, "Hey, why are you stopping that being stolen, I wanted the other guy to stop it?" Doesn't seem very likely does it? Frankly, neither of them would care who prevented the crime, they would just be glad it had been prevented.

There are an enormous number of animal rights campaign groups out there. Some are general ones campaigning for all animal rights, regardless of species. Some are very specific, targeting just one species.

My own organisation, Sea Shepherd is not specifically an animal rights campaign group, it is an ocean conservation society and that is where our focus must lie.

Of course we have sympathies with many of the other groups Those sympathies are shared especially by the vegans amongst us of which I am one. But we are highly focussed on protecting ocean wildlife worldwide and - if you will forgive my hubris on this occasion - we are rather good at what we do.

It is true that you could argue we are only interested in protecting cars whilst leaving others to worry about the motorbikes but then, there are others protecting "motorbikes" so what is the problem? Is it perhaps just that our enemies would rather all the various campaign groups were arguing amongst themselves rather than getting on with the job of protection? I think it might be.

I must say though, that even if there were no other campaign groups out there, if it was only us - and sometimes it sure feels like it! - then I would still not be willing to sacrifice my ocean focus.

You see, whilst the vegan in me does not really see a difference, cruelty is cruelty is cruelty, the researcher in me (and in particular the researcher part which has actually been on the beach and in the water and in boats alongside pilot whales in distress) understands that there is a world of difference between the manner in which agricultural animals are killed individually and the way in which entire families of dolphins and pilot whales are ruthlessly slaughtered.

I can't give you a safe car vs motorbike analogy for this one. the closest I can get is someone being executed on death row (which I also think is totally barbaric just in case you wondered) vs the Rwandan Genocide of very recent history. Let me not dwell on that but instead describe what happens to dolphins being slaughtered in Taiji's killing cove

It can take 6 hours for the killers to drive dolphins into the cove. 6 hours during which the terrified animals are herded together and pushed to near exhaustion (and in some cases beyond exhaustion to actual death), kept disoriented, frightened, scared beyond limits that any human could endure, forced to face fight or flight as a family group with nothing to fight against and flight being the inevitable acceptance of trickery away from apparent danger into apparent safety. In fact, into certain death.

There is no quick way to kill dolphins and pilot whales. It is a slow, agonising death and these are highly vocal animals who scream with pain, over and over again. It can take more hours.

There is no way to break the social bonds which these animals have in there large, extended-family groups. No way short of death. As this death is not short, as this death is horrific, as this death is not quick and as the death of any one amongst a family group and as the death of each one in succession becomes a shared horror, there is no way this can be compared to the death of any other animal other than, perhaps, those humans who have experienced the extreme war crimes associated with ethnic cleansing by an oppressor who had no fear of reprisals.

Can you imagine the terror of a child swimming in its own mother's blood, hearing the screams for hour after ghastly hour of its brothers, its sisters, of all of its family members? Can you imagine waiting for your turn next? Can you imagine relief turning to numb disbelief as you are captured live and transported to a life of captivity entertaining spoiled adults with their dragged along children in an ocean park claiming to be an educational centre of excellence?

Still want to tell me I'm a hypocrite because I am willing to tell you how much I care about that but not give someone else a hard time because they put butter on their bread?

Taiji, Japan and Faroes, Denmark are places of horror. A horror that must be stopped. I don't have a lot of energy left to focus on other things right now, my focus needs to be on doing what I can to end ocean cruelty. End it especially in these two revolting shrines to slaughter.

Thank you for reading.

Of Meeting and Greeting

At the Sea Shepherd induction for new volunteers which we ran last night I had to introduce myself. No difficulties with that, these were all people meeting me for the first time so I was able to talk about who I am - and they were able to talk about who they were - without that being any kind of a test or competition between us.

I love the meet and greet part of any event but I especially love our Sea Shepherd induction where we ask people to tell us why they want to be part of our ocean conservation family.

Take a look at this pic, it really is worth a thousand words to explain why so many of us are so very proud to be involved.

This morning I received my routine spam mail from Friends Reunited (do people still use that or am I just getting mail from an automated spam machine that hasn't been switched off yet?) inviting me to update my profile. Now that is more of a problem. I know who I am. I am more than happy to share that with new friends but I am not convinced my old friends would recognise me, even less would they understand me.

You see, when I tell people "who I am" what I am really describing to new people is "what I do" yet for people who knew me, "away back then" I am describing what I have become and that, again, can only be explained as, "what I do." The problem with that is, because they already have assumptions for how I will have turned out, and because they can have no other frame of reference for how I got to the "who I am" now from the "who I was" when they were part of my inner circle, it would be so much easier to explain if they were actually strangers. The who I was really is a stranger to me now anyway.

There are probably fewer than a dozen people who really know me beyond "what I do" and you could count on the proverbial, "fingers of one hand" how many people on this planet I would trust with all of the "who I am," especially if my vulnerabilities are included. You may even be able to count that one on the finger of one finger...

Pilot Whale, wild and free where it should be
Picture credit: Rory Moore / Barcroft Media

There's no sinister aspect to that, it's just that the things which motivate me are often very personal in nature, often caused by bitter experience which has neither present nor future relevance but which has nevertheless shaped the person I have become.

Other motivations are much more positive in nature and, as long as I am motivated towards positive results, then how I get there in the end probably doesn't matter. After all, the whales don't care that I do what I do for Sea Shepherd because someone like Paul Watson or Peter Hammarstedt inspired me to greater efforts, they just care that someone is doing something other than cause them harm.

In time I hope you will all get a real good feel for what I do from these blogs, some of you may even start to get a real good feel for who I am.

For now let me describe what I do in the same terms as I used at that induction last night:

I, as would any other Sea Shepherd Onshore Volunteer, do whatever I must to enable Paul and all his other Ships Captains and crew do whatever they need to do in order to defend ocean wildlife wherever and whenever it is threatened. That includes being willing to volunteer myself for active campaign duty and you will read much more about that in the very near future.

Someone who I know is doing just that is my best friend Anna who will be going to Taiji in the very near future. I have blogged about Anna before but for our new readers please take the time to read her amazing story here: Anna's Taiji Campaign

As Marine Mammal Medics, both of us know what it feels like to physically save the life of a whale, now we need to do what we can to prevent the deliberate deaths of others. Please follow this blog to find out how we get on.

Thank you for reading and I am very pleased to meet you.

Moby-Dick; The Whale

Today is the 161st anniversary of the publication of Moby-Dick; The Whale, a novel by Herman Melville which first became available on the 14th November, 1851.

The wiki description of this novel is fascinating, "In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and the metaphor to explore numerous complex themes. Through the journey of the main characters, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all examined, as the main characters speculate upon their personal beliefs and their places in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative along with Shakespearean literary devices, such as stage directions, extended soliloquies, and asides."

The review continues with, "The book portrays destructive obsession and monomania, as well as the assumption of anthropomorphism—projecting human instincts, characteristics and motivations onto animals. Moby-Dick is ruthless in attacking the sailors who attempt to hunt and kill him, but it is Ahab who invests Moby-Dick's natural instincts with malignant and evil intentions. In fact, it is not the whale but the crippled Ahab who alone possesses this characteristic."

The Wikipedia contributors to that article are most certainly well read, intelligent and articulate, literary critics and so it is no surprise to find that they do not perceive the whale as being evil, actually stating that it is Ahab "alone" who exhibits any evil intent. However, in popular culture, amongst the less well-read (or perhaps the more television brainwashed) Moby-Dick is, in fact, perceived as a terrifying sea monster.

That is hardly surprising because as a species we have always sought to demonise that which we simply do not understand and are further content to accept the truisms that everyone knows must be true, especially if that truism is, "Here be monsters!"

There is also the obvious commercial advantage in that anything which can be caused to be reviled by the general public can be slaughtered without risk to reputation as a commercial enterprise. Moby-Dick; The Whale as a reverse-marketing piece? Why not, George Orwell did the same for pigs with Animal Farm after all...

Most species of whales, as we all now know, were hunted to near extinction over the next 100 years but, sadly, whaling still has not stopped.

I won't blame Moby-Dick directly but there is something in our collective psyche that is stopping a mass public outcry against the 4 nations which are doing most to prevent the recovery of those most endangered species. That same something is stopping the protest that there should be against those 4 nations. Those same 4 nations who are still hunting those whales not yet proven to be endangered to the same levels of extinction as their cousins.

Those nations are Iceland (pictured), Norway, Denmark (specifically Faroe Islands although allegedly rather a lot of Icelandic whale meat ends up in Danish pig feed - and I thought I was being somewhat tenuous linking Animal Farm with Moby-Dick!) and, of course Japan, whose pirate whaling fleet plunders the Southern Ocean Whale SANCTUARY year after year for bogus research to fill supermarket shelves with toxic, and largely unwanted, meat. Did you know that in the whale sanctuary they kill an extremely high percentage of pregnant females because they swim slower and spend more time at the surface therefore are the easiest target of all for a military grade explosive harpoon? And people say I shouldn't call them disgusting barbarians! Societal norms for polite conversation notwithstanding, they are; therefore I do.

Only one NGO actively combats the killers at sea and that organisation is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who are now proudly embarked on Operation Zero Tolerance which you can read more about at this link: Sea Shepherd Operation Zero Tolerance

Another wonderful animal which has been been hunted to near extinction and remains under the most extreme threat is the shark. People blame Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg for demonising this animal with the novel and film, Jaws and that is certainly true in part. But they were not the first to do so.

Here are 3 newspaper reports from my part of the world, Scotland, published in 1937:

"*FATAL* - On the 1st of September, 1937, there was a triple fatality in the Kilbrannan Sound off Carradale on the Kintyre peninsula when a basking shark capsized a boat containing three people - named as Captain Angus Brown and his son and brother."

"On the 11th of September, 1937, a basking shark attacked a fishing boat, causing damage to its propeller. This incident happened off the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde, very close to the Carradale attack."

"On the 12th of September, 1937, the Clyde steamer the Glen Sannox was attacked by a basking shark and two 5ft observation windows were broken. Again this happened in the same general area, just off the Isle of Arran."

Just look at the language being used: "attacked by," "causing damage to" and, my personal favourite, tales of a basking shark breaking observation windows. How? Seriously, how? And do please look at the picture, the basking shark - although a huge animal - is a true gentle-giant. I know, I have been assisting with surveys in my part of the World for a few years now and it is wonderful to see their numbers starting to stabilise, hopefully to recover in the years to come.

So why demonise them? Maybe this will answer your question, "Between 1946 and 1986 basking shark fisheries in Norway, Scotland and Ireland took 77,204 basking sharks." (EU Fisheries Report) and the last basking sharks were harpooned in the Clyde in Scotland as recently as the late 1990s.

I will certainly return to shark issues with future blogs and you can be sure I will be following Operation Zero Tolerance defending whales with great interest. If you still have the appetite for more today then please see my 31st October blog, Sharks and the Gold Standard but for now, thanks for reading.

Whales, what's the difference?

Before I talk about whales, let me tell you about the two occasions in the last week where I have been at functions with zero provision for vegans, despite plenty of advance warning that a vegan would be there.  Not even soup made with vegetable stock.  Not even a starter that didn't involve some potentially toxic shellfish from the cheapest possible source of supply.

Not a single thing that I could eat, leaving me with the choice of embarrassing my hosts as I sat at table with an empty space in front of me or being "the bigger person" by faking an excuse to leave and dealing with the issue quietly in a more reflective morning mood - and slightly more subjective morning telephone call.

Sometimes those telephone calls can be awkward because, apparently, vegans are actually the ones to blame for not being "normal" like everyone else.

Don't get me wrong, these are not uncaring people I am mixing with. In fact, many of them are very strong supporters of my volunteer work with Sea Shepherd and there is not a single person among them who would actively support the killing of whales, dolphins, seals or any other species of marine megafauna. Passive support is, of course, another story which I will return to in future (watch this blog for details).

They also know my philosophy that knowledge is not power, knowledge is responsibility; responsibility to act.  If you are truly ethical, truly compassionate, truly caring, truly determined to contribute to making your part of our world a better place then if you had the knowledge I have about the oceans and how they are being abused, how could you not become vegan? Honestly, how could you not?

Let's talk about whales.  Especially those whales which are entitled to a life free from harm in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.  A Sanctuary in name, a sanctuary in law, a sanctuary which is being plundered year after year after year while most of the World wrings its hands and assumes it can do nothing. (Passive support for killing?  It is if you really are doing nothing more than wringing your hands!)

My friends in Sea Shepherd are not content to sit and wait.  They take action, direct action, and they have all devoted their lives to saving our most wonderful companions on this shared planet, the whales, from harm.

Others see whales - and whale meat - only in terms of financial gain.

One of the questions I have always asked is why would those who hunt but do not share in the profits which the money-men retain want to kill such magnificent creatures in the first place? There has never been a legitimate argument in reply but there is often the, "you do it so we do it too" excuse which goes along the lines of  we - i.e. Westerners - kill pigs and sheep and hens and cows and so what is the difference?

So,,,

What is the difference?

I don't think there is one and I even more think knowledge is responsibility.

Sometimes it is important to be vegan by example, even if it means going hungry.  Maybe I should have stayed with the empty plate in front of me...