Twyla Groening on Paul Watson's visit to Winnipeg

Captain Paul Watson, Co-founder of Greenpeace and Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has left Winnipeg but not without leaving a mark on all of us who had the incredibly good fortune to hear him speak.

In preparation for his visit, AnimalWatch Manitoba managed to arrange a number of interviews for the Captain - most notably, one with Charles Adler on Adler Online (now heard nationally) - which unfortunately had to be cut short as Captain Watson was forced to appear in court in Charlottetown for charges of interference with last spring's seal hunt (the requirement of his presence in court is puzzling as no one else who's been charged with summary offenses as these has had to appear before). Bartley Kives of the Winnipeg Free Press did a large, positive piece on Paul's work that appeared in the paper on the same day as his talk.

His talk itself at the University of Winnipeg was by all accounts a huge success. Over a hundred Manitobans listened fascinated with the Captain's stories of adventures on the high seas and were stunned to hear that the number of illegal fishing operations far outnumber the number of legal ones. He talked extensively of how we've over-fished almost every species (one Pew Foundation study concluded that we've caused the extinction of 90% of the world's pelagic fish). We learned that whales have 4 lobed brains (outnumbering our paltry 3 lobes) and more convolutions than an equally scaled-to-size human brain; and we felt the Captain's sense of awe at his life-changing experience of looking into the pitying eye of a dying whale who was harpooned while trying to defend a female in his pod, despite the valiant efforts of Captain Watson to save the pod from an illegal whaling ship.

A particularly horrific stat is that a veterinary study a few years ago estimated that up to 42% of seals are skinned alive, because the vets' post-mortem examinations revealed that many had not sustained sufficient skull damage from the sealers' blows to ensure death or unconsciousness. An equally disturbing fact is the extent of the Canadian federal government's indirect subsidization of the seal hunt. The sealers would not have access to the seals were it not for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans sending out the Coast Guard's icebreaker ships to clear a path for the sealers' small, fragile boats. Paul estimated that the bill to the taxpayer for the icebreakers is $100 million, over six times the revenue of the seal hunt to all the sealers.
On a personal note, Paul's compassion for all creatures came through loud and clear when he met my injured kitten, Jain. Little Jain lost an ear and has permanent damage to her jaw from what we think was her being thrown from a moving vehicle onto the gravel road by our house. Paul very gently picked Jain up and she contentedly purred and cuddled in to him, knowing she was in compassionate hands.

Paul Watson is not the radical "eco-terrorist" that many make him out to be. He is enforcing international conservation laws - the legal right of any individual, organization or government - to protect ocean creatures and ecosystems, where national governments have turned a blind eye or worse.

I will continue to support Paul and the enormously important work that he and the Sea Shepherd does. The world could use a fleet of Paul Watsons.

Twyla

Shrine Circus Demo

I wanted to thank those of you who came out for our demos on Tuesday and Wednesday at the MTS Centre. We were so pleased to have 14 people out on Tuesday and 16 people on Wednesday. We had some media out on Tuesday and made it into the Sun but not on any tv stations.

Wednesday's crowd of circus goers seemed to be much larger than Tuesday's. On Wednesday the crowd was lined up from Portage Avenue all the way down to Graham as they stood in line waiting for the doors to open. All the while that people were standing in line waiting, we were able to hand out a lot of brochures and walk up and down the sidewalk with our signs which they were unable to avoid reading.

There was a mixed reaction to our message, from outright hostility and "boos" to acceptance, agreement and support. The little colouring books from PETA went over quite well with the children and the brochure that we designed asking people for their help to put an end to circuses with exotic animal acts was accepted and read by a lot of people. For all the brochures and information sheets that we handed out, there was very little paper littering the street after everyone was finally inside.

It was my sense that a lot of people standing in line were a little uncomfortable with the message that we were presenting, mainly because they realized that it was true. One of our signs had a large picture of a very sad elephant on it and the caption underneath was "Circuses make animals sad". I believe that this thought probably passed through a lot of people's minds when the elephants came into the ring that night and hopefully they left wondering whether perhaps there was something to our assertions that life in the circus is misery for animals.

We had some positive feedback from people that night and subsequently we have also been contacted by someone who, after attending the circus with his children and receiving our handouts, went home and did some of his own investigating on the internet. He came across the brutal video on the PETA website of the elephants being beaten and as a result of this has vowed never to take his children to a circus with animals again. One little victory for us, but I am sure that there were more that we will never know about.

So thanks to everyone who contributed. It is so reassuring to know that your actions are making a difference.

Regards,
Lesley Wise