Next time you find yourself walking through the heart of Times Square on 42nd Street, look up at the ‘CBS Spectacular’ big screen now boasting Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s first outdoor advertising campaign. The state-of-the-art, full motion digital billboard highlights the marine wildlife conservation organization’s anti-whaling campaign for which they are best known, partly due to the success of the popular Animal Planet television series Whale Wars, which will debut in its fourth season later this year. Whale Wars chronicles Sea Shepherd’s activities to end whaling in the Southern Ocean.

“Sea Shepherd wanted to do something completely unprecedented to create awareness of our whale defense campaign this year,” said Founder and President Captain Paul Watson. “We’ve long had a strong support base in New York, so when this opportunity came up we decided to use it to share our mission, raise funds for our Antarctic campaign, and capture the hearts of New Yorkers and international tourists alike. The image of a breathtaking whale breach followed by a harpoon exploding into a whale’s back, sends a powerful message to passersby in a visual language that we can all understand.”

Sea Shepherd is the only non-profit direct action conservation organization that actively patrols the planet’s oceans to defend marine wildlife and their habitats and uphold international conservation laws. Sea Shepherd is currently in the middle of their seventh Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign, appropriately titled Operation No Compromise.

“We are officially halfway through this year’s campaign, and funds are more important now than ever. We need to raise enough money to purchase fuel and provisions to keep our fleet of three ships at sea, to ensure that we can remain in the Southern Ocean through the end of the whaling season in March,” said Captain Watson.

The goal is to stop illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, period. Operation No Compromise has already been deemed a success, as Captain Watson believes Sea Shepherd’s intervention will result in a dramatic decrease of whale deaths by the illegal Japanese fleet, perhaps by as much as 80 percent.

As Captain Watson often reminds us, “If the oceans die, we die.”

The 'CBS Spectacular' is located on W. 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues.

Operation  No Compromise