"I have
been honored to serve the whales, dolphins, seals - and all the other creatures
on this Earth. Their beauty, intelligence, strength, and spirit have inspired
me. These beings have spoken to me, touched me, and I have been rewarded by
friendship with many members of different species.
If the whales
survive and flourish, if the seals continue to live and give birth, and if I can
contribute to ensuring their future prosperity, I will be forever happy."
-
Paul Watson
Founder of Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society
Co-Founding Director Greenpeace Foundation
Early Years
Paul
Watson was born in Toronto, Canada, on December 2, 1950. At six years old, he
and his family moved to the lobster fishing town of St. Andrews-by-the-Sea
in New Brunswick. The eldest of seven children, Watson lived there until January
1964 when his mother died and his father returned the family to Toronto.
His father was Anthony Joseph Watson, a French-Canadian born in New Brunswick,
Canada. His mother was Annamarie Larsen, the daughter of a Danish artist Otto
Larsen and Canadian Doris Phoebe Clark.
In 1960, Watson was a member of
the Kindness Club, founded by Aida Flemming in New Brunswick. After trappers
killed one of his beaver friends, Watson set out, (at the age of nine), to
confiscate and destroy leg-hold traps. He was also known to disrupt deer and
duck hunters, and to prevent other boys from shooting birds.
In
1967, Watson left home to work at Expo 67 in Montreal and then rode the rails to
Vancouver where he worked on the Canadian Pacific Steamship Princess
Marguerite as a fireman. In 1968, Watson joined the Canadian Coast Guard.
His first ship was the weathership C.C.G.S. Vancouver. In 1969, Watson
joined the crew of the Norwegian bulk carrier Bris on a voyage to Asia
and Africa. Early voyages with the Canadian, Norwegian, Swedish, and British
merchant marine provided him with experience on all the world's oceans,
including weathering typhoons in the South China Sea, North Atlantic storms in
the iceberg-strewn northern latitudes of the Atlantic and navigating the war
zones of the Persian Gulf. He served in the Canadian Coast Guard for two years
in the early seventies on weatherships, buoy tenders and on a search and rescue
hovercraft.
The
Greenpeace Days
Watson was one of the co-founders
of the Greenpeace Foundation. In October 1969, his involvement began when he
helped organize a voyage on the U.S. and Canadian border to protest against the
nuclear testing at Amchitka Island by the Atomic Energy Commission.
A few of the participants from
the protest organized a small group to work on more ideas to oppose the testing
at Amchitka. The group was called the Don't Make a Wave Committee and was
composed primarily of members from the Sierra Club and the Society of Friends
(Quakers). Watson, a Sierra Club member, was primarily motivated to
protest the Amchitka testing because of his concern for marine wildlife at the
site.
In
October 1971, the Don't Make a Wave Committee sponsored the voyage of the Greenpeace
I. The Greenpeace I was an 85' Canadian fishing boat formerly
known as the Phyllis Cormack. The ship set forth from Vancouver,
British Columbia, bound for Amchitka Island, (under the command of Captain John
Cormack), with the intention of sailing into the test site. There were thirteen
volunteers on board including Robert Hunter, Rod Marining, and Lyle Thurston.
Three decades later, these three would still be sailing with Captain Watson on
Sea Shepherd campaigns.
The test was delayed and the Greenpeace
I, after a month at sea, headed back to Vancouver.
In the meantime, a second ship
was organized. This was the converted Canadian minesweeper the Edgewater
Fortune. She was named the Greenpeace Too. One of her crew was
Watson. The Greenpeace Too passed the Greenpeace I near
Campbell River and carried on north to Alaska - first to Juneau, and then
outward bound across the Gulf of Alaska to the Aleutians.
The nuclear test had been delayed
to foil the voyage of the Greenpeace I, however, the U.S. Atomic Energy
Committee advanced the next blast date to avoid the Greenpeace Too. The
five-megaton explosion was detonated under Amchitka Island when the Greenpeace
Too was still a few hundred miles away.
The controversy the Greenpeace
voyages generated led to the decision to cancel further tests, and the
detonation of November 1971 was the last nuclear test to take place at Amchitka.
In 1972, the Don't Make a Wave
Committee took the name of the two ships from the first campaign and renamed
themselves the Greenpeace Foundation.
Watson was one of the founding
members and directors of Greenpeace. In fact, he was officially the eighth
founding member. Robert Hunter was the first and his lifetime membership number
was 000. His wife Roberta Hunter was second and her membership number was 001.
Watson's official membership number was and continues to be 007.
In 1972, Watson skippered the
tiny Greenpeace boat Astral, and placed it on a collision course with
the French helicopter carrier, the Jeanne D'Arc, in Vancouver harbor.
This was a protest against French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the South
Pacific. The Jeanne D'Arc was forced to change course. The Astral
changed course and kept on target - bow to bow with the warship, forcing the Jeanne
D'Arc to stop.
In
1973, Watson and David Garrick represented Greenpeace during the occupation of
Wounded Knee, South Dakota by the American Indian Movement. Both men served as
volunteers for AIM, with Watson working with the medics and filing stories back
to Robert Hunter at the Vancouver Sun.
In 1974, Watson, Robert Hunter,
Dr. Paul Spong,, and others organized the first campaign by Greenpeace to oppose
whaling.
In 1975, Watson served as First
officer under Captain John Cormack on the voyage to confront the Soviet Whaling
fleet. In June 1975, Robert Hunter and Watson were the first people to put their
lives on the line to protect whales when Watson placed his inflatable Zodiac
between a Russian harpoon vessel and a pod of defenseless sperm whales. During
this confrontation with the Russian whaler, a harpooned and dying sperm whale
loomed over Watson's small boat. Watson recognized a flicker of understanding in
the dying whale's eye. He felt that the whale knew what they were trying to do.
He watched as the magnificent leviathan heaved its body away from his boat,
slipped beneath the waves and died. A few seconds of looking into this dying
whale's eye changed his life forever. He vowed to become a lifelong defender of
the whales and all creatures of the seas.
In 1976, Watson served again as
First Officer on the voyage of the Greenpeace V. This was the converted
Canadian minesweeper James Bay. Once again, the crew confronted the
Soviet whaling fleet, this time north of Hawaii.
Soon
after the whaling campaign, Watson and David Garrick organized and led the first
Greenpeace campaign to protect harp and hood seals on the East Coast of Canada.
During this campaign, Robert Hunter and Watson stopped a large sealing ship, the
Arctic Endeavor, in the ice by standing on the ice in its path.
Watson's account of the campaign
was published in the Georgia Straight newspaper and entitled Shepherds of
the Labrador Front. It is this article that inspired the name Sea Shepherd
a few years later.
In 1977, Watson led the second
Greenpeace campaign to oppose the seal hunt off the coast of Labrador, this time
bringing international movie star Brigitte Bardot to the ice floes to focus
international attention on the seal slaughter.
Later on this campaign, in an
effort to bring one of the sealing ship's operations to a halt, Watson
handcuffed himself to a pile of seal pelts that were attached to the winch of a
sealing vessel. When the sealers saw what he had done, they dragged him and the
pile of pelts across the ice then up into the air, slamming them against the
hull of the ship. Then they plunged Watson into the frigid waters several times
causing him to lose feeling in his limbs and lose consciousness. Finally, when
Fisheries Minister officers arrived on the scene, he was strapped to a stretcher
and hoisted onboard, where the sealers almost suffocated him by pressing seal
blubber over his face, then dragging him across the deck through seal fat and
blood, kicking him all along the way.
In June 1977, Watson left
the Greenpeace Foundation because of disagreements on tactics and with the
emerging bureaucratic structure of the organization. Patrick Moore had replaced
Robert Hunter and was opposed to direct action campaigns. Moore had informed
Watson that he would not be allowed to lead another seal campaign.
Watson left Greenpeace because he
felt the original goals of the organization were being compromised, and because
he saw a global need to continue direct action conservation activities on the
high seas by an organization that would enforce laws protecting marine wildlife.
To answer that need, that same
year, Watson founded Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - dedicated to research,
investigation, and enforcement of laws, treaties, resolutions and regulations
established to protect marine wildlife worldwide. In December 1978, with the
assistance of Cleveland Amory and the Fund for Animals, Watson purchased a North
Atlantic trawler in Britain and converted her into the conservation enforcement
vessel Sea Shepherd.
The first voyage of the Sea
Shepherd was in March of 1979 - destination was the Gulf of St. Lawrence on
the Eastern coast of Canada to publicize the Canadian seal hunt by utilizing
direct action tactics to save seal pups. Much of the rest of that year was
dedicated to the ending the career of the notorious whaling vessel Sierra.
Pictured above are the only two crewmembers who chose
to stay onboard the Sea Shepherd with Paul -
Peter Woof (left) and Jerry Doran.
Activism
Over the years, Watson has
exhibited a remarkable diversity in his activism. Aside from being a co-founder
of Greenpeace in 1972, Greenpeace International in 1979, and founder of Sea
Shepherd in 1977, Watson was a Field Correspondent for Defenders of Wildlife
between 1976 and 1980. He was a field representative for the Fund for Animals
between 1978 and 1981, and a representative for the Royal Society for the
Protection of Animals in 1979. He co-founded Earthforce Environmental Society in
1977 and Friends of the Wolf in 1984. Watson's first affiliation with the Sierra
Club was in 1968 and he has remained a Sierra Club supporter ever since. Watson
was elected to the National Board of the Sierra Club USA serving as a director
from 2003-2006.
Education and Public
Presentations
Watson majored in communications
and linguistics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. He has lectured
extensively at universities around the world, and was a professor of Ecology at
Pasadena College of Design from 1990 through to 1994. Watson also was an
instructor in UCLA's Honors Program for 1998 and 1999. Currently, Watson is a
registered speaker with the Jodi
Solomon Speakers Bureau of Boston, and regularly gives presentations at
colleges and universities in the United States, and at special events throughout
world.
Politics
On the political front, Watson
has run for Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre in the Canadian Federal
elections. He ran twice for the Green Party. He also ran on the Green Party
ticket for Vancouver Parks Board in 1987 and for Mayor of Vancouver in 1995.
Awards and Commendations
Watson has received many awards
and commendations over the years. In 1996, Watson was awarded an honorary
citizenship to the French town of St. Jean Cap Ferrat. Previous to that he was
made an honorary citizen of the Florida Keys in 1989. Other awards include
Toronto City TV's Environmentalist of the Year Award for 1990, the Genesis Award
in 1998, and he was enrolled in the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2002. He
was also awarded the George H.W. Bush Daily Points of Light Award in 1999 for
his volunteer efforts with conservation activism. He was chosen by Time Magazine
as one of the environmental heroes of the 20th Century in the year 2000.
Published Works
Watson is a prolific writer and
author. His published titles include: Shepherds of the Sea*
(1979), Sea Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals* (1982), Cry
Wolf* (1985), Earthforce!, (1993), Ocean Warrior (1994), and
Seal Wars (2002).
Personal
Watson has one child, Lilliolani
Paula Lum Watson, born in 1980 ("Lani", at 1-year-old, is pictured
below with her mother Starlet Melody Lum).
Continuing Commitment
Watson has served as Master and
Commander on seven different Sea Shepherd ships since 1978. He currently commands
the flagship Steve Irwin. He continues to lead Sea Shepherd campaigns to
protect defenseless marine wildlife around the world -
Sea Shepherd's
Mission Statement
Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife
conservation organization. Our mission is to end the destruction of habitat and
slaughter of wildlife in the world's oceans in order to conserve and protect
ecosystems and species. Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to
investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront
illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our
delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their
survival for future generations.
Paul
Watson was born in Toronto, Canada, on December 2, 1950. At six years old, he
and his family moved to the lobster fishing town of St. Andrews-by-the-Sea
in New Brunswick. The eldest of seven children, Watson lived there until January
1964 when his mother died and his father returned the family to Toronto.
His father was Anthony Joseph Watson, a French-Canadian born in New Brunswick,
Canada. His mother was Annamarie Larsen, the daughter of a Danish artist Otto
Larsen and Canadian Doris Phoebe Clark.
In
1967, Watson left home to work at Expo 67 in Montreal and then rode the rails to
Vancouver where he worked on the Canadian Pacific Steamship Princess
Marguerite as a fireman. In 1968, Watson joined the Canadian Coast Guard.
His first ship was the weathership C.C.G.S. Vancouver. In 1969, Watson
joined the crew of the Norwegian bulk carrier Bris on a voyage to Asia
and Africa. Early voyages with the Canadian, Norwegian, Swedish, and British
merchant marine provided him with experience on all the world's oceans,
including weathering typhoons in the South China Sea, North Atlantic storms in
the iceberg-strewn northern latitudes of the Atlantic and navigating the war
zones of the Persian Gulf. He served in the Canadian Coast Guard for two years
in the early seventies on weatherships, buoy tenders and on a search and rescue
hovercraft.
In
October 1971, the Don't Make a Wave Committee sponsored the voyage of the Greenpeace
I. The Greenpeace I was an 85' Canadian fishing boat formerly
known as the Phyllis Cormack. The ship set forth from Vancouver,
British Columbia, bound for Amchitka Island, (under the command of Captain John
Cormack), with the intention of sailing into the test site. There were thirteen
volunteers on board including Robert Hunter, Rod Marining, and Lyle Thurston.
Three decades later, these three would still be sailing with Captain Watson on
Sea Shepherd campaigns.
In
1973, Watson and David Garrick represented Greenpeace during the occupation of
Wounded Knee, South Dakota by the American Indian Movement. Both men served as
volunteers for AIM, with Watson working with the medics and filing stories back
to Robert Hunter at the Vancouver Sun.
Soon
after the whaling campaign, Watson and David Garrick organized and led the first
Greenpeace campaign to protect harp and hood seals on the East Coast of Canada.
During this campaign, Robert Hunter and Watson stopped a large sealing ship, the
Arctic Endeavor, in the ice by standing on the ice in its path.
