Anyone watch or read about the reality tv show on Animal Planet called Whale Wars? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Here is a brief summary along with some of my opinions.
The show is about Paul Watson who captains a ship of about 35 volunteers and harasses Japanese whalers in the Antarctic in order to prevent them from whaling.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for saving whales, but Paul Watson and his crew are nothing more than eco-terrorists! In their efforts to save whales, they irresponsibly risk human life through their ridiculous stunts and increasingly dangerous maneuvers on the high seas.
Their tactics include throwing butyric acid(stink bombs), Methocel (Slippery Bombs), prop fowlers, ramming, and even boarding Japanese whalers. The stink bombs make working on the whaling boat unpleasant and can spoil the whale meat so it's unusable. Ok, that makes sense to me.
But the thought of using "slippery bombs" to make the shipdeck unwalkable is life-threatening for the Japanese crew! These whalers work in unpredictable Antarctic weather conditions. Anything that makes the shipdeck more slippery than it already is greatly increases the chances of someone going overboard.
And prop fowlers are used to shut down the propeller, making Japanese ships immobile and unable to hunt whales. Are you serious??? So the goal is to strand a ship in the Antarctic where the temperatures dip below zero and blizzard-like storms are a constant? Sounds like a recipe for disaster and a potential re-enactment of the movie A Perfect Storm.
What makes this even more crazy is Paul Watson's crew consists of volunteers who are poorly trained and 100% inept. They to attempt Navy seal-like maneuvers in the open ocean with freezing temperatures, almost always failing miserably due to human error, and mechanical malfunctions. It's only a matter of time before they get themselves killed.
As ridiculous as all of this is, I cannnot help but watch the show because of the unintentional comedy and hypocrisy provided by the crew. The show is like watching a trainwreck(or shipwreck). It's so bad, I can't even turn away!
Here is a video of Whale Wars latest shenanigans which resulted in a major collision. It sliced their speedboat right in half. It's a miracle no one died.
Whale Wars - Dangerous Collision with Whalers
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| Whale Wars or Whale Whores? |
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Leonidas100
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Jan 10 @ 4:43AM
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FYI - Paul Watson was one of the co-founders of Green Peace but was voted out unanimously because of his militant tactics.
The show South Park did a hilarious spoof on the reality show. Episode is called "Whale Whores". It pretty much calls out Paul Watson for his incompetence as well as his reputation for lying or falsely exaggerrating encounters with whalers for propaganda purposes.
On the second season of Whale Wars, Paul Watson actually claimed he was shot with a bullet from Japanese whalers! Luckily, he was wearing a bulletproof vest(no one else on the crew was wearing one mysteriously). He somehow suffered no bruises, and there were no gunshots heard either. I couldn't make this up...lol.
Whale Whores - South Park spoof
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Wordsofwit
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Jan 10 @ 7:13AM
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Interesting blog but it is not the type of show that I will watch unless I specifically know that it will feature stink bombs. That sounds funny.
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Wordsofwit
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Jan 10 @ 8:08AM
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Two adolescent whales, a male and a female, were swimming in the Sea of Japan enjoying a nice day and checking out the ships that were passing by. As they approached this one ship, the male shuddered and stopped.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I think I recognize that ship.” Moving closer in confirmed his apprehension. “Yes, I do recognize it. It is a whaling ship. The one that killed my father!”
“Let’s get out of here!!” She shrieked.
“NO! We need to make sure that ship doesn’t kill any more whales!” He stated with emphatic determination.
“How do you propose to do that?” She asked.
“I think if we come up on it in a hurry, inhale as much air as we can, we can dive under it and exhale on one side of it enough to capsize it.” He calculated.
Her courage rising, she agrees and they swim as fast as they can, inhaling as much air as they can muster before they dive. They come under the ship and exhale with all of their might and the ship rolls over and begins to sink as the sailors abandon ship to proceed swimming towards the shore.
“We did it!!” She gleefully exclaims. “Come on, let’s go.”
“We can’t stop now!!!” he yells . “They will just get another ship and kill more whales. Let’s run the surface and gobble them all up.”
She refuses, saying “No, I went along with the blow job, but I am not swallowing the seamen!”
I post this joke on AMD about once a year and it seemed to fit in this blog.
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Sunshine79
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Jan 10 @ 8:30AM
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I don't eat whale or Japanese people. They can do whatever they want out there, I'm still all good! 
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drcocktail87
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Jan 10 @ 10:39AM
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Not to change the subject Leo, but your Pats are playing my Ravens at 1:00, so I know you'll be glued to the TV like I'll be. It's going to be the Brady bunch versus our severely injured secondary....advantage Pats, even without Welker.
I'll be back to comment on your blog later.
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theSkwirl
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Jan 10 @ 10:47AM
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Mr. Watson seems to be in this thing only for his twenty minutes of fame. So far I've not heard of them actually saving ANYTHING.. in fact all he has so far managed to do is to damage his own boats.
It's not so much human error as it is that Paul is so busy giving interviews he can't keep the crew together on a mission.
I believe Eco-terrorist is a fine epithet for him and his crew.
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whisperingcomet
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Jan 10 @ 10:58AM
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I've watched it a couple of times for a few minute, but it's a little to crazy for me.
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Leonidas100
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Jan 10 @ 10:12PM
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Very appropriate joke for the blog Wow...hadn't heard that one before but I liked it.
Skwirl, I agree with you 100%. They never save whales unfortunately, and Paul Watson is a media whore who shows complete disregard for the lives of his crew.
He's even admitted in past books that he will lie or exaggerate events as long as it brings media attention to the fight to save whales. He feels any news he creates is a positive as long as it puts the issue of whaling in the media spotlight and creates public awareness.
That's all fine and good...i'm all for whale awareness, just not the piracy he engages in that risks human lives on both sides.
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Thenewguy2957
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Jan 11 @ 6:40PM
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I've seen it a few times although I no longer get the channel. It's fascinating to watch, the crew arguing amongst themselves like all good reality based programs. Some crew members apparently are anarchists or nhilists or something, they don't believe in someone being 'in charge'. No proper training, practice or preparation prior to them launching an attack on other ships on the open seas and then calling the media to mis-report events that have just happened and haven't completely unfolded yet.
One episode two of their members boarded a Japanese ship without permission at sea. There was some concern that the Japanese would throw them off the ship, so very dangerous for the poor guys (victims apparently) that had boarded yet once it was clear they were going to remain on board the ship's crew immediately got on the phones claiming they'd been taken hostage. I bet if they had been thrown off they would have called it a murder attempt.
And as has been mentioned they have not succeeded once in stopping the killing of whales. Regardless of how you feel about whaling these people are undisciplined, disorganized losers. But interesting to watch.
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Leonidas100
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Jan 11 @ 7:11PM
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Newguy, u hit the nail right on the head!
At the end of season 2, they finally got the wake up call that they are completely ineffective to stop whaling. The Japanese started killing whales right in front of them ,and their ill-conceived tactics did nothing to stop them.
The Sea Sheperds on Whale wars acted shocked and suprised that the Japanese would even consider kill whales in front of them. Hello??? That is the whalers job and what they do for a living.
The Sea Shepherds are so delusional and self-centered. They view every action by Japanese as aggressive and a provocation towards them when in reality, it is the whalers that are defending themselves.
Very compelling tv nonetheless.
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drcocktail87
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Jan 11 @ 7:48PM
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While "Whale Wars" presents a simplistic case of us against them, the noble environmentalists against the evil whalers, the reality, of course, is not so black and white. By international agreement with the International Whaling Commission, the Japanese were allowed to kill up to a nine hundred minke whales and fifty fin whales in 2007/2008 in the Antarctic ocean for "research purposes." Critics claim that this is thinly veiled commercial fishing. Well true, but it's thinly veiled legal commercial fishing. The reality is the villains have become the eco-terrorists and their significant impact is minute. While it makes for marginally good Reality TV, the overall impact of the show as well as the efforts of the environmentalists is sadly comedic.
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aspiringwriter
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Jan 11 @ 7:51PM
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Well true, but it's thinly veiled legal commercial fishing.
Good point and well put
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theSkwirl
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Jan 11 @ 8:45PM
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I think, what is most disturbing to me, is that this sort of media attention has so fully disengaged the regular populace that groups that used to be sound like Greenpeace and AJL are now nothing more than eco-terrorist funded and using those sorts of tactics.
When PETA was first founded, I was actually a member for about six months. Then they started going over to the radical side thinking that causing hatred was a good way to garner attention.
I think I will settle for belonging to local animal shelters. At least they are doing a good job without killing anyone.
Another annoying bit is that someone keeps buying Sea Shepherds more and more boats. I understand they got another 2 new ones just recently.. after they destroyed one more.
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