411 Dive Log Australasia April 2025

Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Japanese attacked us with stun grenades and in 2017, I was shot. In 2010, a Japanese harpoon vessel deliberately rammed and destroyed the vessel Ady Gil injuring one of our cameramen when all six of the crew were thrown into the frigid seas off the coast of Antarctica. There were no legal consequences against the Japanese vessels, but both Peter Bethune and I were charged with conspiracy to trespass and obstruction of business. Then in 2012, an Interpol Red Notice was issued for my arrest and Japan demanded that I be extradited to their country. As a result, I spent five months being detained in Greenland before Denmark denied the Japanese extradition request. In a situation in Nova Scotia, the police did very little to protect the rights of indigenous fishermen under attack by commercial lobstermen. The Mi’kmaq people’s take is a small percentage of the total lobster quota, but the commercial operators wanting more, began scapegoating the indigenous people, burning their property, assaulting individuals and making threats. Despite promises by the Trudeau government, very little was done. The reality is that commercial fishermen usually get what they want, and their violence is either justified or ignored. We are not afraid of commercial fishermen who are also poachers (most of them are uneducated cowards), but it is clear that many governments and politicians are very much afraid to oppose the increasingly extremist demands of commercial fishermen operating illegally and even afraid to confront poachers. They appear to be suffering from a phobia that I have labeled as Homopecheophobia or the fear of fishermen by politicians and bureaucrats. Disclaimer: As a child I was raised in a lobster fishing village in New Brunswick and I am very familiar with the violent behavior and ecological ignorance of commercial fishermen and poachers. I was witness to plenty of illegal activities that the authorities were not interested in investigating. To learn more about Captain Paul Watson and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, visit paulwatsonfoundation.org.

2005 - The crew of the Farley Mowat were physically attacked by Magdalen Island sealers and suffered minor injuries. The RCMP responded by arresting our crew. Attempts to charge the sealers with assault were denied by the authorities. 2008 - Our ship the Farley Mowat and our crew were attacked by a mob of fishermen in the French islands of St. Pierre and the Magdalen Islands. They cut our mooring lines with axes and threatened the crew. The French police stood by and watched and did nothing. 2011 - My crew and I freed 800 illegally caught Bluefin tuna off the coast of Libya by a Maltese vessel. The crew violently attacked us. The company had our ship arrested in the U.K. We won the case eventually, but the illegal operations of the Maltese company were ignored. 2015 - Sea Shepherd exposed the operations of the toothfish poachers in the Southern Ocean. The Spanish government were given the evidence. Although the ships had been condemned as poachers by Interpol, the Spanish courts dismissed the charges on the grounds that Spain has no jurisdiction over Spanish companies in waters outside of Spain. 2018 - Poachers attacked both Sea Shepherd ships and the Mexican Navy vessels and their station with rocks and Molotov cocktails. At least in this case the authorities were responding to defend the endangered Vaquita porpoise. The poachers however still had the support of some politicians. There were no convictions. A Mexican panga rammed the Farley Mowat . One of the fishermen was killed and another injured. Our crew rescued them from the water. The fishermen then attempted to sue my crew. None of the attacking poachers were charged. In 2023, in the English Channel we documented illegal activities by Dutch super trawlers catching enormous amounts of small fish for conversion to fish meal for factory farms and domestic salmon farms. We documented them fishing illegally inside French and British territorial waters. No charges followed and our evidence was ignored. From 2005 through to 2017, I intervened against the illegal Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern

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