Seal Wars: Twenty-five Years on the Front Lines with the Harp Seals [Paperback]

Paul Watson (Author), Martin Sheen (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2003

Captain Paul Watson has rammed fishing trawlers, smashed whaling ships, sailed boldly into Soviet-controlled waters, and stood bravely on an ice floe between a baby harp seal and an oncoming seal boat. In this daring and sprawling memoir, the captain of the Sea Shepherd recounts his remarkable life on the front lines in the war to stop the viscious slaughter of the Canadian harp seal.

Seal Wars opens in 1996 with Paul Watson -- holed up in a hotel with Martin Sheen in the Magdalen Islands and facing an attacking mob of angry sealers -- being rescued by police and airlifted to safety. Watson recounts the childhood experiences that shaped his adult consciousness and environmental ethic. He records a history of the seal hunt (including all the tragedies, brutalities, and government mismanagement and obfuscation) from its beginning up to the rescue campaigns he courageously led from the prow of the Sea Shepherd.

Starting in 1976 with a Greenpeace crew off Labrador, Paul Watson has braved numerous forays onto the ice floes, many with such celebrities as Brigitte Bardot, Farley Mowat, Martin Sheen, and Pierce Brosnan. He has served time in prison, debated politicians, and quite often put his life on the line. In a passionate defense of environmental responsibility, Seal Wars guides us through the highs and lows, the defeats and successes of Watson's untiring devotion to this noble cause.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Who can forget the sight of snow white harp seal pups with their liquid dark eyes? And who can forget the sealers, clubbing them to death to provide the raw materials for the legal trade in sealskin coats? Watson, the Canadian leader of the Greenpeace campaign to save the seal pups, tells his life story. Feeling an affinity for animals at an early age, his compassion for them led to his engaging in campaigns to fight for them. His rough and ready boyhood, tempered by years at sea on freighters, helped to bring about his final incarnation as an eco-warrior practicing guerrilla conservation. The book opens with a bang as the author, his team, and actor Martin Sheen (who wrote the foreword) are holed up in a hotel trying to survive an attack by a drunken mob of sealers. In lively prose, the author then describes his many campaigns aboard various ships. Although his group also conducted media campaigns and political debates, the meat of this exciting story is Watson's confrontations on the ice. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

The meat of this exciting story is Watson's confrontations on the ice ... An eye-opener for teen environmentalists. (Nancy Bent Booklist 20030515)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155297751X
• ISBN-13: 978-1552977514
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,106,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Man, A Great Story, April 22, 2005

By 

YogaGurl (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Seal Wars: Twenty-five Years on the Front Lines with the Harp Seals (Paperback)

I am 3/4 done with this book but couldn't wait to post a review on Amazon. This is a great story about a great man who has courage, vision, compassion, a sense of justice and humor, to boot! It is hard for me to put this book down. Sometimes I can't wait to see what will happen next and other times, I am cracking up from their antics! (ie. pie filling in their cannons...hysterical!) They are so funny while on such a serious mission....the best way to be, I guess. There is everything in it....politics, travel, adventure, culture, sabotage, suspense, and silliness. The story is interesting on many levels. I learned alot about the history of sealing, the beauty and danger of the ice floes, Newfoundland, the tensions between the English and French of eastern Canada, the corruption of the Canadian government and what it is like to be the only ship among 80 sealing ships out there in the bitter cold trying to stop the slaughter of these innocent beings.
But this book is more than adventure and interest. The virtues of Paul Watson and his crew come thru on every page. These are selfless, dedicated, just, brave men (and a few women) who are risking their all to save innocent seals from being hacked to death. I feel in reading this book I am picking up on the greatness of these people and it feels wonderful - especially living in a world where most people do everything for their own interest only. I felt inspired to be "great" and do more - and I have done more. My hats off to Watson and all others who work to protect the seals. They are the best and I don't know what this world would be like without folks like him. I kiss the ground in thanks that there are people like him. I especially enjoyed Watson's commentary throughout the book that is emotional and often spiritual. Thank you Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd for all you have done. I am with you in spirit all the way. Bless you many times over.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opener!, February 7, 2006

By 

C. Ward "dog lover" (OK, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Seal Wars: Twenty-five Years on the Front Lines with the Harp Seals (Paperback)

I feel so foolish after reading this book. I thought that all it would take to end the barbaric and cruel seal "hunts" is join along with millions of others who are against it, let it be known in a letter or an email and wait to see what happens. I guess I could never fathom a good people, a good government that would allow animal cruelty and to allow it as a proud tradition, a heritage, a right. Yet the world has not seen even a inkling of what really happens come March every year. Cameras aren't allowed. Videos aren't allowed to record the cruelty. If by chance cruelty is recorded, it is a fake, a lie, made up.

I NEVER IMAGINED A GOVERNMENT THAT WOULD ALLOW SUCH CRUELTY. I never imagined a government that would defend brutality to animals and to people! I never imagined this country - the country that allows all this - would want a person who defends an innocent animal, because of what he was witnessing, because of the horrible pain he saw year after year after year, because he couldn't sit back and do nothing, a government that would rather see him dead or imprisoned because of it, yes the government! What an eye opener. How any man could take the most gentle creature on the face of the earth and torture it is beyond my imagination. These people have no compassion, not an iota of mercy. IT'S HAPPENING! AND A GOVERNMENT THAT CALLS THEMSELVES A GOOD PEOPLE IS ALLOWING IT AND PRAISING IT!

Paul Watson's title "Seal Wars" is right on. This book is about a war to protect the seals. Mr. Watson will take you year by year into his life as a Sea Shepherd to the harp seals. He has fought valiantly throughout the years to protect the harp seals and he himself has suffered, but he has never given up. The war still rages on today.

These creatures, very gentle and trusting of people, are living their lives on the ice as they were born on this earth until March of every single year. The seals don't expect it, they don't know it, they trust humans, and then a man comes at a baby seal with the bottom of his boot hard to the face then skinned while still alive, its mother can only watch helplessly as it is squealing in pain, or a club to the head before being skinned (40%+ seals are skinned alive!) or a hakapik into another baby, the heartless fisherman dragging it across the ice while it is still alive, the seal crying in pain - it is only a few days old; a ship - a Coast Guard ship at that - who run the little animals down on the ice purposely, out of spite for those who are trying to protect them; baby seals can't swim, or even a bullet to a mother seals head, for one vain and unnecessary thing - fur.

These animals suffer and they suffer for vain. They will continue to suffer until more people become angry and more people get active. Read this book! READ IT AND DO SOMETHING!! DO WHAT YOU CAN! I guarantee if you have a heart in you, you will want to after reading this! There are several causes on the internet you can find to join. Paul Watson's Sea Shepherd is one of them. Not enough people are speaking up and doing something. There's simply not enough people who care. It is discouraging to read, but we should never let discouragement keep us from speaking for those who can't! Read this book and pass it on and DO SOMETHING!

I was deeply touched by one part of the book in which Mr. Watson describes a peaceful visit, yet another campaign to save them; he says "Looking into those huge, dark, innocent eyes reminded me again of why we had to champion these creatures. The seals were indeed the little lambs of God, their vulnerable innocence in such contrast to the raw, mindless cruelty of the ice floes, a cruelty dwarfed only by the merciless, mindful cruelty of man. I loved them every one. And what we love we defend."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Everyone who cares about earth should read this book, May 30, 2005

By 

Buzz Kerr "Cowtown Buzz" (Calgary, AB Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seal Wars: Twenty-five Years on the Front Lines with the Harp Seals (Paperback)

Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society are true heroes, and this book will inspire you to help end the barbaric Canadian seal hunt once and for all. This book is a great story - and very hard to put down.