Paul Watson: Whale protectors reach safe harbour

After a voyage of 25 days following a daring escape from South Africa, the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat reached Freemantle in Western Australia on Monday.

It was a tempestuous crossing with extremely rough seas and bad weather. The ship had one lifeboat torn away and lost overboard.

But the crew were all safe and all smiles as they dropped anchor in Australian waters. After clearing customs and immigration the ship docked at Berth C in Fremantle Port.

Thanks to Attorney-General Jim McGinty the Fremantle Ports waived berthing, piloting and mooring fees for the ship. This saved us about A$8000.

This act of support was criticised by the opposition party's planning and infrastructure spokesman Simon O'Brien who said: "The Sea Shepherd group have plenty of money. They do not need the charity of the WA taxpayer."

The truth is that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society does not have plenty of money. We are a small group of volunteers. We need every dollar we can to finance our conservation efforts in the Galapagos and to oppose illegal whaling in Antarctica.

Waiving fees for a non-commercial vessel that is trying to stop the illegal slaughter of the whales that Australians love is not charity. I believe that Mr O'Brien's failure to understand the Australian passion for the whales may be one of the reasons he is the shadow minister and not a member of the ruling party of Western Australia.

We are struggling to raise the funding for this campaign, a campaign in which my crew of international volunteers will be risking their lives to stop illegal whaling.

I would like to respectfully ask Mr O'Brien what he is doing to stop the illegal slaughter.

The Honourable Jim McGinty on the other hand displayed real political courage in stating where he stands with regard to the whales.

In response to the criticism that Sea Shepherd is a "radical" group, Mr McGinty, who is Fremantle's MLA, (Member of the Legislative Assembly) said he was not concerned.

"Anyone who is critical of them is frankly being a bit too soft," he said.

The reality of course is that the Sea Shepherd is not a radical organisation. There is nothing radical about opposing illegal activities and Japanese whaling in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary is an illegal activity.

As a conservation organisation, the Sea Shepherd Society is actually quite conservative because we are working to conserve by opposing radical and criminal exploitative activities.

* Paul Watson is founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.