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The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals
Free Press
October 2007
On Sale: September 26, 2007
304 pages
ISBN: 1416532463
EAN: 9781416532460
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
For the crew of the eco-pirate ship the Farley Mowat, any
day saving a whale is a good day to die. In The Whale
Warriors, veteran adventure writer Peter Heller takes us
on a hair-raising journey with a vigilante crew on their
mission to stop illegal Japanese whaling in the stormy,
remote seas off the forbidding shores of Antarctica. The
Farley is the flagship of the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society and captained by its founder, the radical
environmental enforcer Paul Watson. The Japanese, who are
hunting endangered whales in the Southern Ocean Whale
Sanctuary, in violation of several international laws, know
he means business: Watson has sunk eight whaling ships to
the bottom of the sea. For two months, Heller
was aboard the vegan attack vessel as it stalked the
Japanese whaling fleet through the howling gales and
treacherous ice off the pristine Antarctic coast. The ship
is all black, flies under a Jolly Roger, and is outfitted
with a helicopter, fast assault Zodiacs, and a seven-foot
blade attached to the bow, called the can opener.
As Watson and his crew see it, the plight of
the whales is also about the larger crisis of the oceans and
the eleventh hour of life as we know it on Earth. The
exploitation of endangered whales is emblematic of a
terrible overexploitation of the seas that is now entering
its desperate denouement. The oceans may be easy to ignore
because they are literally under the surface, but scientists
believe that the world's oceans are on the verge of total
ecosystem collapse. Our own survival is in the balance.
With Force 8 gales, monstrous seas, and a crew
composed of professional gamblers, Earthfirst! forest
activists, champion equestrians, and ex-military, the action
never stops. In the ice-choked water a swimmer has minutes
to live. The Japanese factory ship is ten times the tonnage
of the Farley. The sailors on board both ships know that
there will be no rescue in this desolate part of the ocean.
Watson presses his enemy while Japan threatens to send down
defense aircraft and warships, Australia appeals for calm,
New Zealand dispatches military surveillance aircraft, the
U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence issues a piracy warning,
and international media begin to track the developing whale
war. For the Sea Shepherds there is no
compromise. If the charismatic, intelligent Great Whales
cannot be saved, there is no hope for the rest of the
planet. Watson aims his ship like a slow torpedo and gives
the order: "Tell the crew, collision in two minutes." In
35-foot seas, it is a deadly game of Antarctic chicken in
which the stakes cannot be higher.
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