Paul Watson talks Salish Sea: salmon and orcas

Captain Paul Watson, co-founder of first Greenpeace and then the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the 1970’s, was honored with the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award at the sixth annual Friday Harbor Film Festival’s opening night gala Oct. 26. The Award honors a person who has “made outstanding contributions to raising the general public’s awareness of important issues, either through his/her activism or as a filmmaker. It is presented in memory of Andrew V. McLaglen, a proficient, award-winning Hollywood film director and long-time resident of San Juan Island.”

As Master and Commander on seven different Sea Shepherd ships since 1978 and as a director of Sea Shepherd campaigns, Watson has been shown in films and TV. He makes a difference. Two Sea Shepard crews and their ships star in “Chasing the Thunder,” a 110 day 10,000-mile chase through four oceans in 2016 to capture the Thunder, a notorious fish poaching vessel. The film was shown Friday and during the festival.

In a phone interview, Watson discussed marine threats to orcas and salmon in the Salish Sea. He believes the Southern Resident Killer Whale population can be saved by addressing the causes threatening their extinction. Farmed Atlantic salmon in British Columbia and Washington pollute the Salish Sea with their fecal matter, growth hormones, infectious viruses and salmon lice, Watson said, repeating points he made Friday night. This decimates salmon fry migrating from Alaska.

Watson accused the Canadian government of protecting the $3 billion salmon farming industry. He likened Atlantic salmon to introducing Piranha, a predator “in an environment it doesn’t belong.”

Saving the five salmon species is key to saving the orcas. Watson was also critical of the amount of surface noises and underwater sonar, saying “low frequency sonar is ultimately deadly to cretaceous whales and dolphins. These are animals that live by sound. They see with their ears,” he said.

He called the whale watching industry “irresponsible,” except for sail and kayak operations. Motorized boats must keep a farther distance, he said.

Watson also reflected back to the start of the captive industry in the 1960s in these waters. “We are capturing them. We are starving them. There should be an economic incentive by industry to protect them,” he said.

He pointed out that wild salmon sustain wild animals, bears and eagles as well as orcas.