Sea Shepherd - Whale Defense Meat Grinder?

We're not sure if anyone stopped for a minute during the "1 Million dollar big check moment" with Sea Shepherd last month to really think about the acquisition of their high speed Earthrace vessel.

Renamed the Ady Gil and painted a nice black, the self styled eco warriors from Sea Shepherd have been touting this ship as their new weapon against Japanese whaling.

All we noticed were the two giant propellers at the back of the vessel that to us looked like big trouble for whales.

With a top speed of 45 knots the renamed Ady Gil credits at least one very serious collision with "submerged debris" during her life at sea.

"Shortly after leaving Palau on day 34, Earthrace struck submerged debris which sheared two blades off the port propeller and bent the drive shaft. This necessitated a return to Palau in order to assess the damage and remove the prop."

The propellers are German-designed, carbon propellers that are 36 inches in diameter.

To date Sea Shepherd have not provided "propeller shrouding" for these whirling Ginsu Knives of the Antarctic and intend on putting this vessel in between Japans harpoon vessels and the whales. Propeller shrouding would protect whales from these extreme blades while still allowing this vessel to "close intercept" with the animals and Japanese whalers.

Did Sea Shepherd or anyone in the eco media stop to think about this?

Clearly, in the rush to congratulate yet another futile season of reality television, no one did.

100 Million Sharks - The Question

Editors Note: Unfortunately this blog post was the result of an online scam by a group of questionable filmmakers pushing a new film called "The Shark Con." Blog reader "Ethan" also contacted other Blue Bloggers with this film clip. He is not an actual blog reader but part of the effort to get free promotion for the film.

The premise of the film is to feature a few marginal and discredited anti shark people in a documentary to enrage the shark conservation movement so people will buy your film. In essence "manufacturing dissent" to sell a film.

This blog does not buy into callous attempts to promote and sell manufactured shark conservation films. We're in the business of real and lasting conservation change. If you want manufactured eco dissent there's always Whale Wars on Animal Planet, and if we say so, they do a much better job.

Original Post

Thanks to blog reader Ethan for sending this in. The conservation question of 100 million sharks killed each year is a lingering one. The number 100 million appeared at least five years ago and is taken for granted as the defacto number of dead shark each and every year.

This number is the backbone to the entire shark conservation movement - 100 million.

But what if science does not back up the numbers?

What if only 25 million sharks are killed each year?

Some have questioned the actual number, others are now making videos:

Free Gaffing Makos - Mumbling Excuses - Shepherd Smith

Shepherd Smith. Looking like a warmed over corpse and wearing too much pancake makeup proceeds to "interview" one of the crew members who allegedly free gaffed a Mako shark this summer in Florida.

Allegedly? Almost certainly? You decide.

Listen carefully to the tale this guy spins up about how they caught the shark, released the shark, "got a hook in it," and then dragged it home. If this was a court of law this guy would be behind bars for "inconsistent story telling."

Unfortunately, he is happily doing FOX News interviews with good old Shepard, who seems more than happy to promote the untimely and most certainly unsportsmanlike catch of a breeding aged Mako shark.

We hear tell Shepherd also hunts ducks with Patriot Missile batteries on loan from the Defense Department.