Saturday, June 6, 2009

Sea Shepherd - Throwing Rocks For Media

Sea Shepherds ongoing international disappointment continues as a recent media tirade slammed South Africa's Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) officials who are now being labeled as "bloodthirsty tyrants" and "mad-dog killers".

Their crime, according to Sea Shepherds titular head Paul Watson, was the unfortunate mass euthanasia of a pod of beached whales.

Watson, whose organization circulated the media tirade, has called MCM a "disgrace to the nation" and said MCM official Mike Meyer had carried out a "savage, merciless, cold-blooded massacre".

Wait a Minute!

This is the same Sea Shepherd who just a few months ago was embroiled in a completely faked whale saving news story that this blog uncovered and then covered again as the story unfolded to its sad conclusion.

Sea Shepherds "Vanessa Pearce" claimed on national news that Sea Shepherd crews were actually on site of a mass Sperm whale standing in Tazmania. She went as far as claiming that Sea Shepherds vessel the Steve Irwin was on site with "actual whale saving gear" but was turned away by Park Rangers leaving the animals to suffer while shadowy figures used chainsaws on recently dead animals.

The entire story turned out to be bogus, but this is Sea Shepherd a direct action eco org that revels in throwing media bombs to maximum audience exposure and little effect.

At the recent tragic stranding in South Africa nothing could be done to save these animals from of lack of resources, ocean conditions, and time. It is to be noted some 120 local volunteers heroically tried to save whales in icy and rough conditions - to no avail. South Africa's Marine and Coastal Management staff are not "bloodthirsty tyrants" and "mad-dog killers" as Paul Watson has publicly charged. They made a tough decision, in tough conditions to put long suffering animals out of misery.

That takes guts, and foresight.

Perhaps Watson and company should spend less time throwing media rocks at glass houses and actually invest in that hypothetical "whale saving gear" his staff claims on Nine-MSN Tazmania to have on board the Steve Irwin.

They could have used it in South Africa recently.

Demand more from your eco org.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too right!

Anonymous said...

Sharkdiver you had responses from SSCS members including Vanessa Pearce..you must be short of decent things to say if you keep repeating the contents of an article that was clearly explained as a misquote. There were SSCS members at the sperm whale stranding, not the ship the Steve Irwin.
Once again you are using your own propaganda regardless of updated information.
Maybe you could write about something you have first hand information on, if you have any information of that nature.

Anonymous said...

misquote!? Waddaya, new? That was no misquote by the sscs media folks that was a bald faced lie sir, read the article.

Shark diver is just pointing out the glaring irony of Paul watsons latest tirade. Irony sir, sad irony for a next to useless ngo called sea shepherd.

Horizon Charters Guadalupe Cage Diving said...

"That was clearly explained as a misquote".

No. Actually it was not.

1. It was not a "misquote". Misquotes are swapping Thursday for Friday, misquotes are dropping last names in interviews. This was media fabrication,and a whopper at that.

2. Nothing was "explained" by SSCS staff. In fact the first response was to redirect blame for this on the reporter, suggesting this entire story was made up by a crazy media. The fall back position was to claim a "misquote" when it was evident that Nine-MSN was not going to back down from the story and that all efforts by SSCS to have the story pulled had failed.

We're not interested in propaganda, that's SSCS department.

These are stone cold facts. SSCS lied about saving beached whales recently in the media.

The irony (if we can borrow from a post) is Paul Watson throwing media bombs at S.A whale guys for a whale rescue that ended sadly.

At least they (S.A crews)were on site and trying to save whales unlike SSCS and a pod of Sperm whales less then 6 months ago.

By the way does the Steve Irwin have "whale saving gear" on board or is that another media fabrication as well?

Demand more from your eco org.

Horizon Charters Guadalupe Cage Diving said...

The comments on this thread are closed. Sorry SSCS folks, we know you like to nit pick small points but we have a blog to run.

Go back to NINE MSN in Taz and speak with the editor and reporter about what did or did not transpire with SSCS.