"‘Our intention is to stop the criminal whaling,’ [Paul] Watson said. ‘We are not a protest organization. We are here to enforce international conservation law. We don’t wave banners. We intervene.’"—"The Whale Warriors," by Peter Heller, ADVENTURE May 2006

Paul Watson has become an eco-celebrity in the past three years, thanks to the television series Whale Wars, filmed during his crew’s 2007–08 campaign in the Southern Ocean. As of this year, though, the grizzled activist and his motley, semitrained band of antiwhaling diehards could still be found giving chase to some of the same Japanese whaling ships they targeted in 2006. In recent months Watson’s notorious volleys of butyric acid (the rotten butter the guerrilla sailors use instead of cannonballs) have been returned: fire hoses—which lightly injured a crew member—and, according to Watson, both concussion grenades and a military-grade sound gun that can cause deafness and disrupt digestion. Watson’s not giving up. "I will not allow them to kill a whale while we’re here, and they know that," Watson told reporters after the latest salvo. "I’ll literally rip their harpoon off their deck if I have to." It may come to that: Japan has publicly announced its intention to harvest 985 whales this year alone.