Commentary by Omar Todd

Livestream footage of the captive pens 
File PhotoThe battles we fight have always more than one front. We are first an aggressive, non-violent, direct-action organization. One of Sea Shepherd’s greatest tools has often been the camera, even before the days of social media.  The camera can capture the raw emotions, feelings, and action in details which social media cannot.  It can be surgical in its precision when showing a particular moment or atrocity. This becomes intensified when the viewer realizes what they are seeing is actually taking place at the moment he or she watches. The camera captures moments that would otherwise be lost or too easily ignored by those that would rather pretend tragedy and slaughter does not happen.

One man in particular has been there with his camera at the ready from the very beginning and is possibly the oldest veteran crewmember apart from Captain Watson himself. Peter J. Brown began as a cameraman for CNN on one of Sea Shepherd’s earliest campaigns and has been involved with Sea Shepherd, in one way or another, ever since.  Last year’s documentary Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist, which consists of film footage carefully taken over a period spanning 35 years on various Sea Shepherd campaigns, is the crown of his work so far.

Peter‘s latest project, EZEARTH.TV is proving to have the potential to get our message directly to a global audience.  This technology which is on the cutting edge of high definition, on-demand video streaming, is currently being tested by our Cove Guardians in Taiji, Japan to stream events, live as they happen. During the first attempt, at its peak, we reached over 7000 live feeds to all parts of the world and had over 70,000 hits on the website: http://taiji.ezearth.tv/. We regard this as a resounding success.

The technology is innovative and with the excellent team of contributing technicians who volunteer their time including; Todd Sauve from Sauve Designs, Ranjit Sivaprakasam from Digital Stream Incorporated, Omar Todd our volunteer lead for Technical Direction and associates.  We believe this technology, as it is used more often by our crews around the world, will become a powerful tool to show the world, in real-time, what is happening in particular locations using mobile phones, iPads and other technology which is readily available.

Perhaps in the near future there will also be live streaming from our ships, UAV’s, or helicopter. As the technology improves, all options are being investigated.

We can hopefully let YOU the viewer make up your own mind. As Captain Watson has said: “If you are a decent being, you wouldn’t walk down the street and let someone be murdered without trying to stop it” and in this spirit, we hope this new and innovative technology helps us in our effort to rid the world of these horrific murders inflicted upon whales, dolphins, sharks, seals and all other marine life.

Check out our live stream from Taiji, where our campaign Operation Infinite Patience is currently underway and our amazing Cove Guardians are bringing the horror of the dolphin slaughter to the world.

http://taiji.ezearth.tv/

Risso Dolphin Meat at Processing House 
Photo: Sea Shepherd

Visit our  Cove Guardians site for more information.