The Shepherd’s new cash cow

It’s anyone’s guess, but it seems like Paul Watson’s money tree has withered and died.

That might help explain why his beloved Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) has recently released a Public Service Announcement about the “dangers of consuming farmed salmon”.

And he is doing it with the help of his fellow anti-seal fur advocate, the well-known face of PETA, Pamela Anderson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUzCgqGg0u4

Their campaign to investigate the salmon farming industry in BC – Operation Virus Hunter – sees them join professional anti-salmon activist Alex Morton in the latest attempt at a smear campaign against the BC salmon aquaculture industry.

The terrible trio - all non-scientists hell-bent on proving something despite the multitude of failed attempts by real scientists to provide evidence for it – will be making a statement of their intent today at a press conference in Vancouver. Both Morton and Anderson will be present to describe their noble mission.

This announcement comes along with the release of a YouTube video where Anderson tries (and monumentally fails) to use big words to explain how farmed salmon “should be avoided by pregnant women”, are “killing wild fish”, and are “preventing whales from feeding their babies”.

She even goes as far as to describe how the pink flesh of farmed salmon is injected with dyes, and the white “parts” are fat which is known to be bad. Oh, not to mention those terrible sea lice killing all the wild fish…

The only experiences Pamela Anderson has about life on the ocean was on a B-rated TV show, but it seems that a complete lack of qualification for the job is a basic requirement to join the club. As nobody involved has any scientific training at all.

Instead, it appears that the plight of the millionaire NGO has reached a new level of desperation – including this bunch of wannabe celebrities attacking the Canadian industry with fabricated (frankly old and boring) and nonsensical misinformation intended to scare the Canadian consumer away from eating farmed salmon.

Designed to scare people away from eating a nutritious, affordable, and healthy product, this operation is nothing more than the next-generation scare-mongering tactics of professional activists.

Searching for a unicorn

The hunt will include the SSCS’s R/V Martin Sheen running up and down the coast of Vancouver Island, stopping along the way harassing salmon farmers to “conduct audits for disease”.

Based on the operations title, the threesome clearly expects to find viruses - maybe the same ones Ms Morton has been trying so very hard to prove exist for such a long time. Now with her new-found friends, perhaps Morton will have more luck.

They seem like the perfect match. From their lack of scientific training, to their irrational hatred for a Canadian industry that aims to help reduce over-fishing and exploitation of iconic wild salmon stocks: their commonalities go as far as their philosophy on reporting the truth.

The Sea Shepherd founder said so himself in his book ‘Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy’: “If you do not know an answer, a fact, or a statistic, then simply follow the example of an American President… make it up on the spot and deliver the information confidently and without hesitation.”

And even going further to say in his subsequent book, ‘Ocean Warrior’: “Survival in a media culture meant developing the skills to understand and manipulate media to achieve strategic objectives”.

Manipulation of the media by making up information to get what you want - yes, this is a match made in heaven.