A Private/Public Memo to the Enviro-blogging community:

Do I really think that Paul Watson was shot?

Off the Record...probably not. [Note to Self: How ridiculous is it for me to post something and then claim that it is off the record?] But, did it draw attention to the "scientific" Japanese Whaling program? Undoubtedly. Sea Shepherd is engaged in a propaganda war more than anything else. Will their television circus hurt or help the enviro-movement? Both. But I am guessing that Watson and co. are operating on a strategic level more than a scientific level. People like you [and you know who you are] and me don't need Sea Shepherd to showcase certain environmental issues like whaling, seal hunting, or shark finning...but there are a lot of people that do. There are a lot of people that really need stage-craft and slight of hand to alert them to certain issues. Animal Planet viewers just may be that kind of audience. The trick is in the balancing act. Can they win over enough people to justify alienating others? It is an extremely complicated issue. Keep in mind I am in no way disagreeing with legitimately concerned Sea Shepherd detractors and and their very legitimate concerns.

Is Paul Watson an asshole? UNDOUBTEDLY. But is he our asshole? That is the question.

I myself am an asshole. When I slander fishermen and photoshop obscenities on them I am guaranteeing alienating a certain audience...but then again, I never had much hope for that audience anyway.

I am trying to reach the internet tough guys, the porn addicts, lolcat freaks, anonymous chantards, meme forwarders, video gamers, 40-year-old virgins, pot heads, freelancers, comic book guys, furries, larpers. If I can alert them to an environmental issue or two with poopy pants humor and dick jokes, fine. Die hard Republicans, neo-cons, debutantes, Mormons, the humorless, Sarah Palin, trophy hunters...I don't have a chance with those people.

I can't speak for Paul Watson or Sea Shepherd and their exact demographic targeting scheme and agitprop strategy, but for everyone they turn off with some wonky Oliver Stone ballistics, they inform at least one person about the unnecessary horror of the Japanese Whaling Program, or Shark Finning, or Seal Clubbing. Are their methods questionable? Sure. But Greenpeace and the rest of the NGOs with similar environmental interests do a very good job of separating themselves PR-wise from Sea Shepherd. And Sea Shepherd does a very good job of making sure to separate themselves from Greenpeace and the rest of the NGOs by publicly shitting on them whenever possible and complaining all day long how no one wants to share logistics and intel with them. There are plenty of Greenpeacers that privately like Sea Shepherd and vice-versa. Greenpeace loves when Sea Shepherd plays the fool and Sea Shepherd loves when Greenpeace plays it aloof and legitimate. They are all playing to their own target audiences...at the end of the day it is all to the same ends. And we all have our part to play--agitators and agent provocateurs too.

Just look at all the publicity they are getting from all of us! The more we talk and post about it, the better it is for Sea Shepherd. Any publicity is good publicity...whether it is true or not, it is all propaganda...all of it.

--Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Whales, Greenpeace, NGO, environmentalism, Seal Clubbing, Japanese Whaling, Animal Planet, Whale Wars

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Okay, it is a slow news day...unless you care about the Nikkei index or are related to Jennifer Hudson. Um, here is something a bit more up our alley.
Um, not really.

Screw it,

--Ms Sharky

technorati tags: Jennifer Hudson, Nikkei, Methamphetamine, Chewbacca, Baseball, Star Wars, Seals

Research by New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research suggests that New Zealand's Great White Sharks may be swimming to Australia every spring in order to feed on baby Humpback Whales. New Zealand has been running an extensive satellite tagging program of White Sharks since 2005 in order to determine whether the Sharks were native to Kiwi waters or whether they were coming in from somewhere else.

"We think they may be searching for newborn humpback whale calves, because all the tags have surfaced in or near known humpback calving sites."

[Dr Malcolm Francis]

The current hypothesis is this: White Sharks spend the winter feeding on Seals in New Zealand, but when the weather warms and only the stronger Seals remain the Sharks move to more tropical waters in search for more exotic fare.

We often piss on Japan, Norway, and Iceland for commercially hunting Whales. We are not making light of the death of these Australian baby Humpbacks. We are stating that Great Whites are taking them by natural predatory action. Human Whaling--especially conducted by Death Star-size factory ships--while predatory, is not natural and we will piss on it with great vigor at any given opportunity.

This Baby Humpback was drowned in Australian Shark nets. Each year several Whales are killed off Australia in nets meant to kill Sharks in order to stop Sharks from cruising beaches and scaring the pretty people.

The Sydney Aquarium Conservation Fund has recently called for the removal of Shark nets from New South Wales beaches, because they are ineffective at protecting swimmers and kill too much marine life.

"Dolphins, dugongs, turtles. We also get stingrays, we also get rare and endangered sharks being caught up. We've had occasions whereby we've had our rare and endangered grey nurse shark get caught up, and we can ill afford to lose any."

[Colin Henrisson]

And in other tragedies:

Sarah Palin, the undergraduate years...all 6-to-10 of them. She may be broke, but she ain't flat busted. NOT PHOTOSHOPPED!

Thanks to Shannon for poking us in the ass about the Humpbacks,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Sharks, Whales, Whaling, Great White Sharks, Shark Nets, New Zealand, Australia, Photoshop, Sarah Palin, Republicans, Alaska, GOP, Dolphins, Dugongs, Stingrays, Colin Henrisson, Malcolm Francis, Humpback Whales, Shark Tagging, New South Wales

Pic somewhat related

PETA has sent an official letter to InBev the multinational conglomerate that just bought out Anheuser-Busch, claiming that they have an anonymous donor with extremely deep pockets that wants to purchase at least one of the SeaWorld theme parks in order to free all the captive marine animals. PETA says that the park would not be closed and the animals would be replaced with virtual-reality or animatronic displays. While we applaud PETA for their balls on this one, and we do think it is evil to keep large and intelligent marine mammals in relatively small enclosures for the amusement of fat type-2 diabetics and their bedwetting hyperactive children, but virtual-reality and animatronic displays? Forget all the early 1990 pre-internet sci-fi talk, just free the animals and turn the place into a hippie theme park.

Their anonymous donor is going to need really deep pockets. SeaWorld could be worth $5 or 6 Billion. SeaWorld Ohio--formerly the shittiest SeaWorld--was sold at a fire sale in 2001 for $110 million.

Read.

Free all the Willys,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Orcas, Killer Whales, Dolphins, SeaWorld, PETA, InBev, Anhueser-Busch, anonymous, Ohio

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Just Kidding, John McCain is only 142 years old.

Researchers from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso have been investigating the disappearance of large numbers of Harbor Seals in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago. They suspected the Greenland Shark, a Shark known to grow over 20 feet long and live to be 200 years old. One of the Greenland Sharks they dissected contained the jaw bone of a Polar Bear.

Greenland Shark...they are creepy.
[source]

Scientists don't know for sure whether the Shark ate the Polar Bear live as it swam, or simply scavenged its corpse. Word has it that all the top wildlife filmmakers and underwater photographers are rushing to the arctic to photograph any potential jam activity. And they may have a lot of it. Polar Bears like to swim, and they will be doing a lot more of it because climate change is quickly melting the polar ice caps. If water temps rise--which they will--other large Shark species may start migrating north in search of large prey.
Swim Faster White Boy!

Again, we must repeat that it is still unknown whether Greenland Sharks are actively preying on live Polar Bears. With all the climate change, strange things are evolving north of the Arctic Circle.
Thank you, Global Warming.

--Ms Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Greenland Sharks, Sleeper Sharks, Polar Bears, Global Warming, Climate Change, Norway, John McCain, Svalbard, Harbor Seals

And Canada feebly attempts to pry the nails out.

Earlier this month, the 27-member states of the EU ratified a ban on Seal products from countries where Seal hunting practices are deemed cruel. It was left unspoken, but they meant Canada. Unfortunately, it was left unspoken, as was the definition of "cruel." Still, it delivers a message to Canada that civilized people have no need of their bloody fur. How does the Canadian Department of Fisheries respond to the ban? They propose killing even more Seals!

Ron Chisholm, Nova Scotia's fisheries minister has called for an expanded annual seal hunt in his province. Nova Scotia's Seal slaughter is nothing compared to Newfoundland's. Although Nova Scotians are allowed to kill up to 12,000 per year, they only usually kill a few hundred. Why does Ron Chisholm want to expand the hunt? He claims that Grey Seals eat too many fish and are hurting the livelihoods of Nova Scotian fishermen. There is absolutely no scientific evidence to back this assertion. Canadian fisheries ministers have a long tradition of blaming their own piss poor fisheries management on Seals. Because the Canadian fisheries department has allowed the fishing industry they regulate to run wild on fishing stocks, most Canadian fisheries are critically overfished. Then they scapegoat their own greed, hubris, and stupidity on other wildlife in order to create new exploitable resources. If anyone calls them out on their bullshit, they then claim that these "ecoterroists" don't care about the economies of poor and rural fishing communities. Well, if the fisheries department care so much about these poor communities why did they let the seafood industry destroy them? Why didn't they do their jobs and regulate their fisheries properly?

The "Honourable" Fisheries Minister of Nova Scotia.

Love,

The Honourable,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Seals, Seal Hunt, Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Grey Seals, fishing

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Two Sea Shepherd mariners, Captain Alexander Cornelissen and First Officer Peter Hammarstedt, of the vessel Farley Mowat pleaded NOT GUILTY today in Nova Scotia to charges of coming to close to Seal hunters without a proper Seal-Hunt observation license. The supposed infraction happened on March 30 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A gang of seal clubbers claimed that the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat got within 900 meters of them on the ice near Cape Breton. Sea Shepherd contends that Farley Mowat is a Dutch-registered ship and not subject to Canadian regulations that attempt to hide the bloody massacre of Seals from the rest of the world. Sea Shepherd also contends that the ship was not within the 900-meter limit and was in fact in international waters. If found guilty the two mariners are subject to obscene fines of up to US$98,680 and a year in jail.

The Canadian Coast Guard continues to hold the Farley Mowat hostage. The failing and heavily subsidized Canadian Seal Clubbing industry sells pelts mostly to Norway, Russia, and China. Seal products are banned in civilized countries.

Read.

Read More.

In related news, hundreds of civilized people protested outside the European Union headquarters in Brussels yesterday. They were demanding that the entire 27-nation EU impose a continent-wide ban on Seal products from Canada and elsewhere.

Civilized People
[source]

Eh?

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Seals, Canada, Nova Scotia, Sea Shepherd, Farley Mowat, Belgium, EU, Brussels, fur, Nprway, Russia, China, Seal Clubbing

Seal clubbing season runs from July 1 to November 15 in the African nation of Namibia. This year's quota is the same as last year's--86,000! And the best part? Namibian Sealers don't care so much about international outrage as Canadian Sealers--80,000 of the Seals to be clubbed this year are nursing pups. That's right! Baby Seals!

Seals are processed for their skin, fur, and meat (except no one really eats them and the market for seal products dwindles every year).

Seal blood and waste products are rendered into Seal oil for use in quack pills and medicines.

The justification for the slaughter as laid down by Moses Maurihungirire, the director of resource management at Namibia's Ministry of Fisheries and Marine resources, is that seals eat 1/3 of Namibia's fish, which is bad for Namibian fishermen, also the slaughter creates 149 jobs. Nice!

The white stuff? After being stabbed, this baby Seal is spitting up the milk it had just suckled from its mother.

Need we say any more?

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Africa, South Africa, Namibia, Seals, Seal Hunt, baby Seals, fishing

Ayveq the beloved masturbating Walrus at the New York Aquarium died on Sunday of a "massive" bacterial infection. He was 14. Coney Island will never be the same. Now the only ones jerking off are the condominium developers.

While he was known to entertain crowds with his self gratification, he had one known son,Akituusaq, whom he sired with female Walrus Kulusiq after years of impressing her with his manual dexterity. He will certainly be missed...we wish we could say the same for the condo developers.

Read.

A cruel metaphor:

First George Carlin and now Ayveq! WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW? I'm so depressed, I may have to just eat a fucking surfer.

"Rat shit! Bat shit! Dirty ol' twat! 69 assholes tied in a knot! Hooray! Lizard shit! Fuck!" --Ayveq George Carlin

--Ms Sharky

technorati tags: , Walruses, Ayveg, NYC, New York Aquarium, Brooklyn, Coney Island, Rats, Bats, Lizards, George Carlin

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Our good friends at the Institute of Jurassic Technology have hipped us to a sweet multimedia presentation over at National Geographic featuring the jamtastic photog skills of Paul Nicklen. We have been crossing our fins that Paul Nicklen would soon turn his camera toward Sharks because his nature photography is some of the best around. His lens has teeth! Check out some of his Leopard Seal jams:

A Leopard Seal Prepares to Jam.

A Leopard Seal Jams!

Holy Shit! Bonus Points For DECAPITATION SKINNING DISEMBOWELING uh...seriously though, what the fuck is she doing! Is it possible to over-jam?

We wanted to photoshop our trademark sarcasm all over those photos, but we just couldn't. They were too good on their own.

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Leopard Seals, National+Geographic, Paul Nicklen, Penguins, wildlife photography

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