Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

With the snap of his fingers, entertainment industry executive Ady Gil can summon the artisans and technology to build stage facilities for Hollywood television productions and movie premieres. On Saturday, they helped him again with an unusual and hastily called assignment: a fundraiser at his spacious Woodland Hills home to raise the $3 million to $5 million needed to replace a sleek anti-whaling trimaran that collided with a Japanese whaling ship last week. Gil financed the purchase of the now-sunken vessel, later renamed after him, by the militant environmental group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for its campaign to interfere with whaling, a saga at the center of Animal Planet's "Whale Wars" reality series.

With his bushy white beard, stout figure and cargo pants, Captain Paul Watson looks more like a hard-edged seaman than the star of one of television's more popular reality shows. But at a busy restaurant in downtown Los Angeles this spring, the 59-year-old at the center of "Whale Wars" was being confronted by his new identity as a celebrity. After being seated, Watson was promptly greeted by a waiter, who presented him with a tray full of vegan hors d'oeuvres. "Compliments of the chef," the waiter said.

Members of the radical Sea Shepherd Conservation Society set sail for the North Pacific on a mission to destroy Japanese fishing nets they claim are killing thousands of seals, porpoises and other sea animals. The hard-line environmentalists are prepared for a confrontation with Japanese fishing boats "that could be anything from a stand-off, to the Japanese possibly opening fire on us," said Scott Trimingham, president of the Sea Shepherd Society.

With the snap of his fingers, entertainment industry executive Ady Gil can summon the artisans and technology to build stage facilities for Hollywood television productions and movie premieres. On Saturday, they helped him again with an unusual and hastily called assignment: a fundraiser at his spacious Woodland Hills home to raise the $3 million to $5 million needed to replace a sleek anti-whaling trimaran that collided with a Japanese whaling ship last week. Gil financed the purchase of the now-sunken vessel, later renamed after him, by the militant environmental group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for its campaign to interfere with whaling, a saga at the center of Animal Planet's "Whale Wars" reality series.

A fire that broke out on an Icelandic cargo ship in the mid-Atlantic is being investigated as possible sabotage by anti-whaling environmental groups, Icelandic police said. The fire began in a car being transported by the Hofsjokull, which is used to carry frozen fish to U.S. markets, and followed anonymous threats to the ship's captain, a police spokesman said. The crew managed to quickly put out the fire.

The Japan Coast Guard said anti-whaling activists threw rotten butter and other objects at a Japanese whale-processing ship, the latest high-seas clash over the country's annual hunt. The coast guard said its officers aboard the vessel responded by tossing nonlethal explosive devices as a warning. The leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society anti-whaling group said he had been shot at during the confrontation with the whaling vessel, the Nisshin Maru, and was saved by his bulletproof vest.

A ship carrying a group of radical anti-whaling activists collided with a Japanese whaling vessel in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica today in a clash Japan's Fisheries Agency called unforgivable. No one was injured. Activist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said his ship was trying to prevent a Japanese ship from dragging a whale on board when another Japanese vessel shot in front of Watson's, causing a collision. In a statement, the Institute of Cetacean Research -- the Japanese government-affiliated organization that oversees the hunt -- condemned the protesters' actions, characterizing the collision as a "deliberate ramming."

Susan Salter Reynolds made reference to me in her article defending the barbaric slaughter of whales in the Faeroe Islands ("Hunting Whales in West L.A.," April 27). She reported a very sanitized whale kill, most likely organized for her benefit. Her description does not sound like anything that I have witnessed there, and I have plenty of video attesting to the horrific cruelty involved with the killing of these whales. I can provide video of pilot whales being stoned, stabbed and slashed, and video of whales having their heads sawed off while alive and children participating by poking out the whales' eyes.

Kirkpatrick Sale referred to me and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in his Sept. 29 commentary on the Earth Liberation Front, "These Elves Are Up to More Than Mischief." He wrote that "ecotage," or eco-sabotage, began in this country in 1977 when I founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Sea Shepherd operates outside of the U.S. primarily, and the organization has undertaken only one action within the territory of the U.S., a completely legal opposition to illegal whaling by the Makah tribe in Washington state in 1998 and 1999.

A hard-line environmentalist group chasing Japanese whalers near Antarctica said it had found the Japanese fleet and had attempted to attack one of the vessels with stink bombs. In a statement on its website, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said the attack by a boat launched from its ship the Steve Irwin was called off because of blizzard conditions.

The Hollywood-style rescue of six militant conservationists stranded after Tuesday night's collision between an anti-whaling boat and a Japanese whaler in the Southern Ocean spotlighted significant financial contributions to the activists from two of the entertainment industry's top animal-cause philanthropists. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's sleek, speedy and stealthy carbon-fiber trimaran, the Ady Gil, was purchased with a $1-million donation from Gil, co-owner of American Hi Definition Inc., one of Hollywood's leading providers of video production trucks, custom control rooms and camera systems to entertainment and corporate clients, including Jay Leno.

A group of militant conservationists embroiled in clashes with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean have decided to end their campaign for the season, the group's leader said today. The risk had become too great that someone would be seriously injured in the increasingly contentious run-ins on the remote and icy waters, Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ship, said by satellite phone. The ship Steve Irwin left for the southern Australian state of Tasmania.

A hard-line environmentalist group chasing Japanese whalers near Antarctica said it had found the Japanese fleet and had attempted to attack one of the vessels with stink bombs. In a statement on its website, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said the attack by a boat launched from its ship the Steve Irwin was called off because of blizzard conditions.

The Japan Coast Guard said anti-whaling activists threw rotten butter and other objects at a Japanese whale-processing ship, the latest high-seas clash over the country's annual hunt. The coast guard said its officers aboard the vessel responded by tossing nonlethal explosive devices as a warning. The leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society anti-whaling group said he had been shot at during the confrontation with the whaling vessel, the Nisshin Maru, and was saved by his bulletproof vest.

Kirkpatrick Sale referred to me and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in his Sept. 29 commentary on the Earth Liberation Front, "These Elves Are Up to More Than Mischief." He wrote that "ecotage," or eco-sabotage, began in this country in 1977 when I founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Sea Shepherd operates outside of the U.S. primarily, and the organization has undertaken only one action within the territory of the U.S., a completely legal opposition to illegal whaling by the Makah tribe in Washington state in 1998 and 1999.

Susan Salter Reynolds made reference to me in her article defending the barbaric slaughter of whales in the Faeroe Islands ("Hunting Whales in West L.A.," April 27). She reported a very sanitized whale kill, most likely organized for her benefit. Her description does not sound like anything that I have witnessed there, and I have plenty of video attesting to the horrific cruelty involved with the killing of these whales. I can provide video of pilot whales being stoned, stabbed and slashed, and video of whales having their heads sawed off while alive and children participating by poking out the whales' eyes.