Whale Wars

I just started watching a fantastic show. It's called Whale Wars and it's on Animal Planet, Fridays at 9. And sadly, nothing you see in this photo is on the show...but it's still good. When I first heard about this show, I thought it sounded silly. People who sail around the world, attempting to stop Japanese whaling ships...people who are willing to die for whales? What the what? My friend Rachel finally convinced me to watch an episode. And by "convince" I mean, I was too lazy to get out of my comfy chair when she was watching it. I was quickly hooked...or harpooned, as it were.

This show is nuts. Let's talk about the founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson. He was also a founding member of Greenpeace--until he left because he was too extreme. Too extreme for Greenpeace. That's like a cast member of Jersey Shore saying, "Hey, you're too tan." No one is too extreme for Greenpeace; oh, but wait. His name is Paul Watson.

I'm surprised I wasn't more interested in this show initially, based on my childhood love of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. If you're not familiar with this movie, get familiar. The Enterprise has to travel back to the 80s in order to get humpback whales for the future. Whales are extinct in the future and they're going to bring them back so they can un-extinct them. You should watch it for no reason other than Scotty's line, "Admiral, there be whales here!" Also, Admiral Kirk cares so much about getting these whales that he disobeys a direct order and gets busted down to Captain.

The members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society are hardcore. They go on these missions for weeks and they're only allowed to shower for 5 minutes, like once a month. They go after all these Japanese whaling ships and shoot stink bombs at them and mostly just screw with them so that they can't kill whales. If I had balls, I'd be one of these people.