Hippy Pirates throwing stink bombs to save whales

I’m sure everyone has seen all the advertising for Animal Planet’s Whale Wars on every site you visit these days. Not sure if it peaked your interest, but you know I watched it. So you have this group of green vegan hippies out in the roughest ocean conditions in the world hunting for Japanese whalers. What could go wrong? In the first episode, pretty much everything. What do you expect when you have a group of untrained tree huggers living onboard a ship named the Steve Irwin? Total chaos and freak accidents of course. First they capsize their Zodiac with 4 people on board and take forever to rescue them. Then in the panic of the rescue, one crewmember damages the rotor blade of their scout helicopter. This makes for great TV, but even worse for the reputation of the Sea Sheppard’s. Founded by the founder of Greenpeace, this ship has harassed whalers for 25 years. The captain is a surly bastard who was kicked out of the very organization he created. Greenpeace has non-violently been revealing the dirty work of these so-called “research” whaling vessels for years. The Sea Shepherd’s say that they must act to stop these whalers from killing thousands of whales each season and are willing to die for their mission. At the rate they are going, that is a possibility. Greenpeace refuses to offer any kind of help towards the Sea Shepherd’s and does not want to be associated with these hippy pirates. With good reason, they are kinda taboo. These are international waters, where the Japanese are acting in accordance with their government under the banner of medical research. The law was constructed in a way that benefits the “researchers” since in order to comply; they must not waste any part of the whale. So whale meat “waste” is collected and sold legally. How clever these whale killers are to get lobbyist to create this beneficial law.
While I did tear up seeing these whales slaughtered, I’m not sure that the Sea Shepherd’s are the answer. Yes, they slow down the whaling efforts, but they only slow it down, they don’t shut it down. Violence begets violence. As the Sea Shepherd’s harass these whalers who are acting in accordance with their laws, it is only natural that the whalers are going to step up their game and people are going to die. While the Sea Shepherd’s villianize Greenpeace for only acting passively and taking pictures of these whalers, I commend them. People have to see what is happening. People have to be moved to react and do something about it. The only real way to shut these whalers down is by pulling at the Japanese’s heartstrings and getting them to put pressure on their government to ban whaling. I know this is easy said than done, but I don’t think some hippy pirates throwing stink bombs at a whaling fleet is going to stop this practice. With that said, I do think it is awesome that there is crew willing to risk their lives to save some whales.