Sea Shepherd has been using direct action to stop illegal whale poachers around the world since 1979. After commercial whaling almost drove whales to extinction, a global moratorium was put into place in 1986. However, some countries have refused to recognize the ban. Norway and Iceland continue commercial whaling, and the Faroe Islands continue to kill pilot whales and other cetaceans traveling through their coastal waters. The Japanese send their fleet all the way to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary each Austral summer to slaughter hundreds whales under the guise of “scientific research”, a claim rejected by the IWC as well as the International Court of Justice and the Australian Federal Courts. Since the first trip to Antarctica in 2002, Sea Shepherd’s Southern Ocean Whale Defense direct-action campaigns have successfully prevented the slaughter of over 6000 whales. Sea Shepherd has also opposed the slaughter of seals in Canada since 1978. Despite a ban on the import of seal products into the US and EU, Canada continues to club thousands of seal pups to death every year.

“Japan has declared war on the whales in the Southern Ocean. The signatory nations to the relevant conventions have not done anything but talk. No other NGO, aside from Sea Shepherd, is doing anything to intervene.” - Captain Alex Cornelissen

Offshore drilling accidents, blowouts and spills have caused some of the biggest manmade environmental disasters of our time, affecting marine wildlife and the livelihood of coastal communities. Sea Shepherd teamed up with Ocean Alliance in 2014 to research the long-term impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the use of toxic chemicals that dispersed oil throughout the waters and food chain. To prevent the possibility of another disastrous spill in our oceans, in 2016 Sea Shepherd helped successfully block BP from establishing new offshore drilling operations in the pristine waters of the Great Australian Bight.