By Captain Paul Watson

It amazed me that when a man who slaughters seals and has told the RCMP that he assaulted seal defenders makes a complaint that he is receiving death threats - the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) makes a national story out of it.

Now I don't condone anyone making death threats to anyone else, and incidentally, I have to say that my wife and I receive death threats from around the world all the time.

A few years ago on the streets of Ketchikan, Alaska, a Norwegian fisherman directly threatened to kill me. I called the Ketchikan police and was told that it was not a crime to make a death threat - the man was exercising his freedom of speech and there was nothing they could do.

In 1995, when my crew and I were violently assaulted in the Magadalen Islands of Quebec, Canada, I was threatened with death directly by numerous sealers with members of the Quebec Provincial Police Force present. Astonishingly, the sealers were not arrested. They were not even charged with assault and battery despite the fact that the assaults were documented by independent media crews from Germany, Britain, the U.S., and Canada.

Now, I know that it is widely thought that C.B.C. often means Controlled By Canada, and to me, this story seems like another propaganda attempt by Canada to gain sympathy for the sealers. I don't envy their task. It is a difficult job to drum up sympathy for a captain whose crew punch women in the stomach, attack people with cameras with hakapiks, and club baby seals for a few, measly dollars.

But as someone who receives death threats on a regular basis, I have some advice for this seal-killing thug who is whining about people calling him and allegedly threatening him.

So to Captain Rendell Genge, here is a primer on the subject of death threats:

1. If you do things which make other people angry, you will receive threats. That is the way of the world. I make people angry because I try to protect life and habitats and I receive death threats. You make people angry because you are a baby seal killer - so surprise, surprise, you receive threats.

2. As someone who is frequently threatened, I can tell you that people who make such threats are just venting their rage. If someone really wants to kill you, they won't be advertising it in advance.

3. Stop whining - it makes you sound pathetic. You're all the big man when it comes to bashing seal pups in the head and when your crew punch women, but you crumble like a snowman in July when someone gets angry with you on the phone. Remember Ren, that the phone just conveys a voice and the person is hundreds, even thousands, of miles away from you and can't hurt you.

4. If you have a complaint, call the cops and have them investigate it. But I can tell you that if some bloke in Alice Springs, Australia, happened to have gotten drunk and called you to say he was going to beat the crap out of you, well, I don't think the Mounties will be able to do a thing about it.

5.  And if you're going to complain about threats, maybe you should talk to your wife who, by the way, called my wife and threatened to, and I quote, "...kick the living shit out of you," just one day after you and your men assaulted my crew.  Sounds like a case of a "pot calling the kettle black" to me.

6.  And finally, stop killing seals.  You did not do so well this year. Your boat broke down, the weather was a bitch, you're under investigation for assault and battery charges, and people around the world see you as one of a group which includes sadists, woman beaters, and baby seal killers.  Now they also see you as a pathetic whiner.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has not, does not, and will never advocate that people make threats of personal violence to other people. We have an unblemished record of nonviolence. Since I founded the Society in 1977 there has not been one incident of a person being assaulted, injured, or threatened by a Sea Shepherd crewmember - not one. Captain Genge's implication to the CBC that Sea Shepherd is responsible for these threats is simply an attempt to deflect attention and criticism from the documented violent assault by him and his crew against my crew.

This is the same man who claimed in the media that he was defending himself after being attacked by my crew. Three Sea Shepherd video cameras were operating during the entire incident and show that this was not the case.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has an investigation underway into three different assault complaints:  by Sea Shepherd crew and from two other organizations regarding attacks by sealers upon their representatives on the ice (Humane Society of the United States and International Fund for Animal Welfare).

Because all of the incidents were documented, we expect the Mounted Police will be laying charges soon.