Star of the Animal Planet TV Series "Whale Wars."
Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Director of the Sierra
Club and the Founding Director of the Greenpeace Foundation. Called the
"world's most aggressive, most determined, most active and most effective
defender of wildlife," Captain Paul Watson is an environmental hero and the
bane of illegal whalers and seal hunters around the world.
One of the co-founders of Greenpeace (officially, it's 8th member), Captain
Watson sailed on many of the Greenpeace ships in the organization's original
direct action campaigns where he was noted for acts of bravery and bravado in
protecting endangered wildlife. He was the first to put himself and his Zodiac
inflatable boat between a whale and a harpoon. Because of disagreements with
the emerging bureaucratic structure of the organization, Captain Watson
resigned from the foundation and began the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society -
an organization dedicated to the research, investigation and enforcement of
laws, treaties, resolutions and regulations established to protect marine
wildlife.
In 1978 he purchased a North Atlantic trawler and converted it into the
conservation enforcement vessel Sea Shepherd. The Sea Shepherd's first mission
was on the ice floes of eastern Canada to interfere and protect the annual
killing of baby harp seals. In 1979 the Sea Shepherd hunted down and rammed the
notorious pirate whaler Sierra in a Portugal harbor subsequently sinking it and
ending its scourge of the seas.
Since then there have been seven Sea Shepherd ships with hundreds of
successful missions committed to the eradication of pirate whaling, poaching,
fining, unlawful habitat destruction and violations of established
international law in the world's oceans.
Today, Captain Watson commands the 657-ton Canadian research ship the Farley
Mowat, the enforcement vessel Steve Irwin and the Canadian research and patrol
ship the Sirenian and leads the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to protect
defenseless marine wildlife around the world. He is also an advisor to many
governments and world leaders and has faculty positions at several
universities. He has received many awards for his work including the Genesis
Award in 1998, TIME magazine's Environmental Hero of the Planet in 2000,
President George H.W. Bush's Points of Light Award in 1999 and an inductee into
the Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2002.
