Sea Shepherd has been criticized for many things by many people for many reasons and quite frankly we could not give a good goddamn because what we do, we do for our clients, the whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles, fish, and sea-birds. We have never injured a single person and we have never been convicted of a felony crime. Not bad for an organization that has been operating for over three decades.

But this little bit of criticism posted on Wikipedia by Bill Rossiter of Cetacean Society International is just plain weird:

From Wikipedia:

Criticism from Cetacean Society International
Cetacean Society International president Bill Rossiter criticized the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society 2004 campaign to defend dolphins in Taiji, Japan, saying: "We can't report how many dolphins were mercilessly killed or sold to captivity, because of effective strategies this year to stop the world from witnessing the travesty. After some early protesters from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society played into the hands of the authorities and freed some netted dolphins, their actions became the excuse to keep almost all other outsiders legally restricted and unable to document the slaughter any further."

So what we have here is Cetacean Society International's President Bill Rossiter condemning Sea Shepherd for saving the lives of 15 dolphins in 2003 when Allison Lance and Alex Cornelissen dove into the bay to cut the nets to free them from entrapment and the spears and knives of their executioners.

Amazing! What Sea Shepherd did in 2003 was expose the Taiji dolphin slaughter to the world. Our photos and video were broadcast around the world. Since then thanks to Ric O'Barry and the documentary movie The Cove, the Taiji slaughter is something the world has become aware of and Japan is becoming increasingly more embarrassed as a result.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society got the ball rolling on this massive expose in 2003 and we directly saved the lives of 15 dolphins as a bonus that year.

Allison and Alex spent three weeks in Japanese jail cells being interrogated for freeing the dolphins, yet Bill said their actions played into the hands of the dolphin killers. What Bill is saying is that Alex and Allison should have watched the dolphins die rather than save them.

This is apparently because silly little Billy Rossiter is upset because he does not get to count dead dolphins at Taiji or record the number of dolphins sent off to Aquariums.

Off course there are other ways of documenting purchases by Aquariums but Billy boy is obviously too lazy to pursue other avenues of research. He would rather have the dolphins die so he can count them without harassment by the dolphin killers.

Billy is the kind of guy who wants to treat the dolphin killers politely. He does not want to rock the boat or upset anyone. His idea of saving dolphins is to count bodies and Sea Shepherd upset his plans by getting in the face of the dolphin killers forcing them to obstruct the killing bay with huge tarps.

Of course the dolphin defenders found a way to get around those barriers and the cameras captured every gory detail but Bill just simply did not have the right stuff to get on that boat. He was mired in the muck of red tape with a counter in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

Now I don't know Bill Rossiter personally, I never met him or I can't remember him if I did, but as someone who has been working with cetacean conservation issues for over three decades, I don't have any idea what this group Cetacean Society International actually does, if they do anything at all other than attack other groups for saving dolphins.

But I checked their website and was shocked to see this description:

"Welcome to Cetacean Society International. CSI is an all-volunteer, non-profit, tax-exempt conservation, education, and research organization with contacts in over 25 countries. Our goal is the 'optimum utilization of cetacean resources,' as called for in the 1946 Treaty of the International Whaling Commission."

Wow - "optimum utilization of cetacean resources."

I wonder what that means?

Optimum means desirable of course and this could mean anything, but the IWC included whaling as an optimum utilization of cetacean resources in 1946 which suggests that CSI actually supports whaling because they specifically state "as called for by the IWC." I presume they do not actually support whaling but this language is sufficiently confusing to suggest that they might; and what's with the word "resources"? Whales and dolphins are not resources. They are intelligent, socially complex, sentient mammals.

We don't use words like "stocks" or "resources" in Sea Shepherd when referring to our clients.

Cetacean Society International is based in Georgetown, CT. The e-mail for William Rossiter, CSI President is rossiter@csiwhalesalive.org

Drop him a line if you have the time and ask him to take a lesson in enemy identification. Sea Shepherd is saving the lives of whales and dolphins. Rossiter is using his organization to attack Sea Shepherd and slandering our name on Wikipedia and who knows where else.