Report from the Farley Mowat

1100 Hours AST

The mass slaughter of seal pups in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is over for 2005. The ignorant savages that so horrifically and inhumanely slew thousands of innocent creatures are limping home, some with their holds full of bloody pelts and some with very little to show for it.

Some of the sealing vessels are still in trouble. The Gulf Venture was calling for Coast Guard assistance at 0900 hours today, and pleading to be towed into a Newfoundland port.

The notorious Brady Mariner, whose crew viciously assaulted some of the Farley Mowat crew on April 1^st, was broken down in the ice last night. The crew of the Farley Mowat now refer to these thugs as the Brady Bunch. It was entertaining to hear them whine all through the day and night about being broken down and being questioned by the Mounties about their "alleged" assault.

The survivors of the massacre, the seal pups, are learning to swim and feed and are becoming aware of the marine environment that will be their home. They are the lucky ones, who survived because chance allowed them to not be seen by the thugs with the clubs and the guns.

The sealers certainly presented themselves in a manner that brought shame to Newfoundland, the Magdalen Islands, and Canada. Sealers violently assaulted the crew of the Farley Mowat. They brutally assaulted a film crew from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), even to the point of firing rifle shots to intimidate those who were only armed with cameras. They also threatened a group from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). They have been recorded making death threats, threats of rape to our female crew, and one rather bizarre individual got his kicks from dropping his pants and masturbating in front of the women crewmembers on the Farley Mowat.

There was also plenty of juvenile mooning by guys you would think were old enough to know better. One crewmember on the Farley Mowat said, "We have seen plenty of Newfie rear ends to last a lifetime and it was not a pretty sight. These guys are rude, nude, and have a mean 'tude. What a credit to Canada."

A criminal investigation is currently underway by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police into the three separate incidents of assault, assault and battery, and assault with a deadly weapon.

The Farley Mowat was the last ship to leave the ice last night. The conservation ship worked its way through forty miles of pack ice without the assistance of the Coast Guard ice-breakers. "We took some blows from growlers and hard ice but there is not a dent in this vessel, she took the ice well," said Captain Paul Watson.

Remnants of blood remained on the ice - scarlet stains now old, cold, and brown - fading evidence of the horrendous crimes committed on these recently pristine floes. The pathetic little bodies remained, frozen now, their open eyes vacantly staring out at a cruel world that ended their lives so prematurely. But every live seal pup spotted on the ice was a cause for hope. Sea Shepherd crew watched joyfully every time a seal pup's head rose from the water or scrambled up on a chunk of ice.

"They are beautiful," said Laura Dakin from Bermuda. "Yes they are," answered Captain Paul Watson. "They are the very symbol of wild natural beauty and innocence and if our kind can treat such adorable creatures with such insensitivity and cruelty, then we are capable of every kind of evil.  But then again, the history of the human species has proven that point already."

The Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat now has nowhere to go. The ship is not welcome in a Canadian port nor can it return to a port in the United States. The United States Coast Guard has demanded that the ship be drydocked and the small hole which was repaired by divers in Maine be permanently repaired prior to re-entry.

"We would like to continue on to the impending slaughter of seals off the Northern coast of Newfoundland which begins on April 12th," said Captain Paul Watson. "We need to find crew, buy provisions, and re-fuel at this point."

"The ice is thicker, the seas more treacherous, the sealing ships more numerous, the government more hostile, and the sealers more brutal on the Front than in the Gulf. Not a single protestor has gone there since Sea Shepherd last confronted them on the Front in 1983. We are more than ready and willing to tackle the Newfoundland sealing fleet off the Northern Newfoundland Coast," said Captain Paul Watson.