‘WHALE WARS’ INTERVIEW: Putting one’s life on the line to stop whaling for good

With the wind at their back and the welcoming smell of salty water in the air, the crew members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society head out on the open seas looking to protect endangered whales and other marine wildlife from international poachers. Because of their aggressive tactics in the ocean, the stars of Animal Planet’s successful Whale Wars series have been called just about every name possible. But even their opponents cannot deny the crew’s dedication to the worldwide environmental campaign to stop commercial whaling.

As the reality show hits the airwaves for its fifth season (new episodes run Friday nights at 9 p.m.), the Sea Shepherd team finds itself at a crossroads. The fleet’s skipper and founder, Captain Paul Watson, has been detained in Germany and awaits possible extradition to Costa Rica for a maritime incident that took place in 2002.

“Captain Paul Watson was flying through Germany to get to France to do a book launch, and when he arrived at Frankfurt International Airport, he was detained,” said Peter Hammarstedt, first mate of Sea Shepherd’s Bob Barker vessel. “It was a case that was brought up first in 2002. … And now all of a sudden 10 years later it’s mysteriously coming up again.”

The extradition stems from an incident in 2002 when Watson arrested a Costa Rican “poaching vessel” off the shores of Guatemala. “When Captain Paul Watson contacted the appropriate Guatemalan authorities, they asked him to arrest the vessel on their behalf and escort it to Guatemala,” according to Hammarstedt, who is currently in Germany with his skipper. “At this stage, Captain Paul Watson is released on bail. The extradition process is still ongoing, and basically this extradition process could take up to 90 days.”

Throughout this ordeal, Hammarstedt said the skipper has kept his eye on future campaigns to disrupt whaling in the southern ocean. “When I visited Captain Paul Watson in jail, the first questions I asked him were: ‘Hey Paul, how are you doing? Are you getting good food? How are the prison guards treating you?’ And Captain Paul Watson didn’t even answer my questions. The first thing he said, ‘Hey, Peter, how are we coming along trying to get a fourth ship for Antarctica?’ … This extradition procedure and these completely bogus charges don’t affect Sea Shepherd’s campaigning at all.”

Audience members who have followed the Sea Shepherd crew for the past five years on Animal Planet have come to know the many personalities of the TV series. With its cleverly named ships — Bob Barker, Steve Irwin and Brigitte Bardot — and team of crew members and volunteers, many of them with bloodshot eyes and permanent 5-o’clock shadows, the Sea Shepherd has leaped from the depths of the ocean to the comforts of the living room. Along the way, viewers have watched the evolution of whaling and the undying dedication of these select few on the edge of the world.

“When I joined Sea Shepherd, very few people even knew what Sea Shepherd was,” Hammarstedt said. “I joined almost 10 years ago. I was 18 years old. Sea Shepherd only had one vessel. My first campaign I did, we had a dry dock campaign. The vessel needed repairs, and so we spent 6 months in dry dock. And that was pretty much our annual budget. So we didn’t get to do anything.”

Now, because of the exposure of the Animal Planet show and its spinoffs, the once-disillusioned public is turning an increasingly skeptical eye to commercial whaling. “People generally don’t think about what happens to marine wildlife, because it’s something that happens under the surface. It’s something that happens out of sight and out of mind. And Whale Wars has been great at getting people to think about whaling and thinking about the ocean.”

Hammarstedt, 28, said he’s living his lifelong dream. At 14 years old, he saw a picture of a whale being pulled off the slipway of a Japanese whaling vessel. After seeing the blood and looming death, “there was nothing I wanted to do more than put my life on the line and prevent that from ever happening again. … When one of these whales gets harpooned, it can take 20-30 minutes before one of these whales slowly drowns in their own blood after they are harpooned. It’s something that I think viewers were so shocked to see when they saw that happen on Whale Wars. It really brought the issue home to them.”

Hammarstedt submitted an application to join Sea Shepherd as a volunteer, and he’s been navigating the choppy waters of the oceans ever since. Many others have taken a similar plunge, but a campaign with Watson and his crew is not a pleasure cruise. “The first question you are asked when you submit an application to Sea Shepherd is: Are you willing to risk your life to save the life of a whale,” the first mate said. “And I was certainly willing to do that. Captain Paul Watson has been a hero of mine since I was very young. … And I think that’s one of the really fantastic things about Captain Paul Watson, and I think it’s one of the great things about the show Whale Wars as well, is that it shows that individuals really can make a difference.”

In the show’s fifth season, the Sea Shepherd fleet continues its campaign against Japanese whaling vessels along the coast of Antarctica. “What Sea Shepherd has been very successful at doing is cutting into their profits,” Hammarstedt said. “One thing that is very true of Sea Shepherd is that we have never lost a game of chicken that we played. To load a whale off this factory ship, the harpoon ship has to get through 1,000 tons of steel, being us. And what we then do is we basically follow them through any weather, through any ice and we just don’t leave them. And by doing that (in season five) … we were able to save 863 whales from slaughter.”

Hammarstedt hopes that viewers don’t simply sit at home and watch Whale Wars as entertainment. “To save the planet, to save the ocean, to save ultimately ourselves, it requires our own personal involvement,” he said. “So what I would ask our viewers to do is to look into their own lives and see where is their passion, what do they feel really strongly about, and then what are their skills, what are they good at? And then I would ask them to use those skills and make a difference and move in one direction and one direction only, and that’s forward.”

Sea Shepherd doesn’t sail in still waters. They are met with controversy and criticism at almost every turn. There have been disagreements with governments and environmental organizations over the years, but Hammarstedt said he wanted to ensure the public understood the fleet’s mission.

“Sea Shepherd is a nonviolent organization. We’ve never caused an injury, certainly not a death. Sea Shepherd has never been convicted of a felony offense, and that’s because ultimately what we’re doing is upholding international conservation law, when the governments of the world either lack the political will or the economic means to tackle poaching. In many ways, I see us as not being radical, but being incredibly conservative. We are basically law enforcers on the high seas. Unfortunately, we seem so controversial to many people, I suppose, (because) people are so detached from the natural world and they see the natural world as only something to be made money off of. They don’t recognize there’s an intrinsic value in whales and in the ocean.”

Hammarstedt takes some of the adjectives used to describe Sea Shepherd throughout the years and turns them on the whalers. “What I consider radical, extreme and violent is harpooning endangered whales, killing them, taking 20-30 minutes to kill them, in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling, and this illegal whaling takes place in a whale sanctuary. … I see the only rational response to that is to actually go down and physically stop them. And that’s the kind of action that Whale Wars documents, the physical act of getting down there and shutting down their operations, once and for all.”

Although his purpose in life deals with the bloody aftermath of attacks on marine wildlife, Hammarstedt tries to stay positive. “I’m absolutely 100 percent convinced that we will end whaling in the southern ocean,” he said. “The reason for that is that we speak the only language that these poachers understand and that’s the language of profit and loss. In the past two seasons that Animal Planet has documented our campaigns in the southern ocean, we have sent the whaling fleet home early.

“The only reason they went down again this year was that the Japanese government allocated $30 million from the tsunami relief fund specifically for security to stop Sea Shepherd from stopping the whalers. I think a lot of people would be surprised and shocked and disgusted if they knew that their charitable donations to help tsunami victims (were) going to supporting whaling in a whale sanctuary.”

But how is an environmental organization, staffed with volunteers, supposed to take on an established whaling industry with millions of dollars in security funds?

When the sun breaks on the horizon, and another day is spent trying to save the whales of the world, the crew of the Sea Shepherd holds onto an intangible safety net that keeps their eyes on the waters in front of them.

“This is a classic David-and-Goliath struggle, and we have one thing that these poachers don’t have, and that’s passion,” Hammarstedt said. “These guys are just in it for the money. We are driven by genuine concern and passion.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Whale Wars airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on Animal Planet. Click here for more information.