Barbara Sumner Burstyn: Anti-whaling fanatic fighting yesterday's battle

Some issues are so black and white they are never examined, let alone criticised. Like whaling. It's obvious that every pro-whaler is bad and all anti-whalers are good.

That's why when a guy like Paul Watson, the icon of anti-whalers, drops anchor in Auckland Harbour we welcome him unquestioningly.

Watson, who describes his conservation group, Sea Shepherd, as a self-appointed policing organisation for whalekind, is famous for his Robin Hood-like tactics.

To make sure whalers and any fisherman breaking Sea Shepherd's rules get the message, he sails up close, flouting international sailing conventions, and declares them under arrest.

When they ignore him, he begins his campaign of harassment, including water cannons, firing gunpowder and his piece de resistance, the "can-opener", a tool apparently capable of ripping open the steel hulls of ships.

The technique has led to many boat sinkings and a number of close calls for sailors.

Excuse me, but am I missing something here?

Here's a known saboteur, a man the Norwegians call a terrorist and whose organisation is said to have solid links to the frightening Animal Liberation Front and whose activities come under the FBI's animal enterprise terrorism watch, floating happily in Auckland Harbour.

As if that isn't enough, Watson has been branded a blatant racist by native people across North America - not only for his attempts to stop the legal capture of a grey whale by the Makah Indian tribe but for his writings, where, using discredited and racist anthropological models, he argues racism is a mere "human triviality".

Then there are the criminal convictions. Watson, who claims he speaks on behalf of the Cetacean nation, has served time in several foreign prisons.

A court in The Netherlands sentenced him to 120 days of unconditional imprisonment for trying to scuttle a whaling vessel in 1992.

He has been charged with criminal damage after steering another of his ships into a Coastguard vessel in 1994, and he has been accused of transmitting false alarm signals and of illegal entry into Norwegian territorial waters.

He has had multiple arrests on criminal mischief charges and recently faced attempted murder charges and criminal charges for ramming a Costa Rican fishing boat.

With such a list of unlawful activity, the presence on board of a "powder" used to fire his deck-mounted cannon, not to mention his tools designed to sink another vessel, it seems remarkable that the New Zealand immigration authorities have turned a blind eye to him and the Auckland police have done no more than pay a cursory visit.

But, you reason, he is saving the whales. Well, that may not be all it seems, either.

A few decades ago, Watson's crusade made sense. Commercial whaling had devastated many whale breeds, pushing some to the point of extinction.

But today the United States National Marine Fisheries Service estimates there are more than two million sperm whales worldwide.

The International Whaling Commission calculated years ago that there were more than 900,000 minke whales and 780,000 pilot whales worldwide, and the numbers are higher now.

Milton Freeman, a whaling expert at the University of Alberta, estimates the number of minke whales has trebled over 30 years and humpback numbers are exploding at a rate of between 12 and 17 per cent a year.

And the Makah hunt Watson tried to shut down? That's been a part of the culture for 2000 years. Deeply embedded in spiritual and cultural traditions, the Makahs' carefully managed hunt poses no threat whatsoever to the conservation of the Pacific grey whale as their own rules forbid the killing of more than 20 whales every five years (or an average of four whales a year) from a stock estimated at around 20,000.

Writing in the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof commented that while most large whales remain at risk, for some species we can no longer argue that we need to "save the whales". They have been saved.

He added that whales now eat at least 300 million tonnes of marine life, three times as much as humans, and there is speculation that rising numbers of minke whales may be holding down the population of blue whales that compete for similar food.

So is Paul Watson really the Robin Hood of conservation? I don't think so.

Watson's crusade is not about the protection of endangered species. It is about one obsessive man with a cause. Certainly it is a cause that wins the feel-good prize, but one that ultimately doesn't stack up.

And even if it did have merit beyond our romantic need to feel connected to another species, his actions are still criminal. Imagine if Watson was using New Zealand as his base for other terrorist activity, say blowing up buildings, would we have welcomed him to our shores?

Under the spurious cover of animal rights, we seem to have suspended our common sense and allowed this extremist to set up shop in Auckland Harbour, trading his propaganda, touting for new recruits and planning his next attack.

So think about it. Does the end justify his means? And should those of us who nonetheless support that end ignore the means of a fanatic who believes animals have equal rights with humans and is willing to go to any lengths to promote his cause?

Minke sushi anyone?

The 'anti-whaling fanatic' responds

nzherald.co.nz/environment