Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 26. Chapters: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society operations, Paul Watson, List of Whale Wars episodes, Pete Bethune, Rod Coronado, Alex Pacheco, 1986 Hvalur sinkings, MV Gojira, At the Edge of the World. Excerpt: The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society engages in various demonstrations, campaigns, and tactical operations at sea and elsewhere, including conventional protests and direct actions to protect marine wildlife. Sea Shepherd operations have included interdiction against commercial fishing, shark poaching and finning, seal hunting and whaling. Many of their activities have been called piracy or terrorism by their targets. Sea Shepherd says that they have taken more than 4,000 volunteers on operations over a period of 30 years. Sea Shepherd engaged in a multi-year campaign against the drift netting practices, which it calls a way of strip mining the ocean's wildlife. Sea Shepherd's Divine Wind vessel investigated suspected driftnet fleets and collected ghost nets in 1987, while in 1990-1992 Sea Shepherd II and the Edward Abbe several times rammed Japanese driftnetting vessels and destroyed their nets. Sea Shepherd only reduced their campaign activities after the United Nations in 1992 banned drift-netting in international waters. Sea Shepherd in 2006 noted that drift netting had again gained prominence, due to the reduction of fish stocks tempting commercial fisheries to again use the method to keep up their catch volumes. In February 1991, representatives of a tuna boat in the Pacific south of Mexico said that they had been rammed by Sea Shepherd II. Sea Shepherd accused it of catching and killing dolphins in its tuna nets and confirmed its ship had dealt the tuna boat a "glancing blow.¿ In April 2002, the Government of Costa Rica invited Sea Shepherd to assist in patrolling for poachers around Cocos Island. The group and Costa Rica had negotiated an agreement for this work which was due to be finalised on April 30, 2002. On April 22, the Farley Mowat (formerly the Ocean Warrior), captained by Paul Watson, was en route to the island when it came across the Varadero I which the group alleges was poaching sharks. The authorities were contacted and Sea Shepherd was told to