We continue our interview with controversial Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson …

‘In comparison to the problems that the world’s wildlife population has experienced, I don’t think that any human sacrifice is anything, really. We’re not sacrificing anything.’

People’s opinions of Captain Paul Watson are divided, although many of them can’t pinpoint exactly why. Some are annoyed that he claims to be a captain without the necessary paperwork. After more than 30 years at sea, however, others believe he couldn’t be more qualified to be the leader of a ship.

Perhaps part of the dislike stems from inflammatory statements such as ‘I don’t have enough respect for people to be concerned about what they call me.’

You can see why he rubs people up the wrong way; society expects that people want to be liked. But it’s his detractors he’s referring to here, rather than his supporters, of whom there are many, including Hollywood celebrities like Pierce Brosnan, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, William Shatner and Uma Thurman. In his foreword to Watson’s book Seal Wars: Twenty-five Years on the Front Lines with the Harp Seals, Martin Sheen says Paul Watson is ‘by far the most knowledgeable, dedicated and courageous environmentalist alive today’.

It’s easy to understand how he garners this support in Hollywood; Paul Watson would be as refreshing as sea air. Not only has he walked the talk, he’s down-to-earth, passionate and knowledgeable, and he has a never-ending supply of entertaining, enlightening and incredible stories. Unquestionably, he’s also undertaking meaningful work. And then there are his other supporters, who include Mick Jagger and the Dalai Lama.

Watson has been banned from International Whaling Commission (IWC) meetings since 1986, after the Sea Shepherd sunk two Icelandic whaling vessels, and since that time the IWC has been vocal in its condemnation of him. Interestingly, then, in 2006 the IWC’s outgoing vice-chair Horst Kleinschmidt joined the Sea Shepherd’s board as an advisor, and he’s still on the board today.

From Namibia in southern Africa, Horst Kleinschmidt speaks four languages and has a host of university degrees. He says, ‘I have been an activist all my life. I fought against apartheid and for the rights and dignity of the oppressed people of my country. For this I went to jail and then into exile … Having been an IWC Commissioner, the plight of the world’s whales became apparent to me … Sea Shepherd alerts and educates people through its radical actions, which is why I decided to side with this organisation.’

When it comes to the cause, Watson doesn’t mince his words either, and nor does he buy into human trivialities. Equally, he condemns the use of culture or tradition to justify killing, calling these justifications ‘ridiculous’. Watson has been outspokenly critical of tribes like the Makah, a North American tribe from Neah Bay in Washington, who continue to whale today under an 1855 treaty. Watson says these exemptions of ‘aboriginality’ can be applied to almost any culture if you look far enough back into history. 

‘I mean what the hell, where does that begin? They’re breaking the law, and if they’re breaking the law, we are going to oppose them. And I think that it would be racist of me not to oppose them because I’m discriminating against them based on their race, and I won’t do that. So I find that being politically correct to me is being racist. Because I only look at people as people, I don’t see any difference down the line. I don’t see a difference between male and female, black, red, whatever, it’s all the same – it’s human beings, one race, the human race.’

Watson’s message is to all humankind, regardless of creed, religion, race or colour. He believes in living in accordance with the three basic laws of ecology:

1. The law of diversity – that the strength of an eco-system depends upon the diversity in it
2. The law of interdependence – that all those species are interdependent
3. The law of finite resources – that there is a gross limit carrying capacity.

Of the last law he says, ‘humans are stealing the carrying capacity of other species in that they have to be eliminated in order for us to increase our populations’.

Watson says last year he was criticised in the United States for a comment that referred to worms being more important than humans, which he explains:

‘Worms can live on the planet without people; people can’t live on the planet without worms. Honeybees are more important than people, bacteria is more important than people – any species that is actually a foundation species which allows for the other species to survive is more important than the species up top. So the so-called higher mammals are actually lower on the value scale than the bacteria and the insects which maintain this planet for us.’

Of course, even foundation species have symbiotic relationships. Some bacteria, for instance, live only in humans. But the point is valid; other species live far more harmoniously on this earth than people. To the planet’s survival, we are superfluous. And if the planet survives and we don’t change our ways, Watson says there’ll be consequences.

‘What I would like to see is that people understand that everything they do has repercussions. They should learn to live in harmony with other species and respect other species and learn to abide by the laws of ecology. Any species throughout the last billion years that hasn’t lived in accordance with the laws of ecology becomes extinct. It’s as simple as that. If you want to survive, obey the law, otherwise you’re going to disappear. Because we’re already at carrying capacity – the environment is set up into different niches that different species occupy. And if you start vacating a lot of these niches then things begin to collapse.’

Watson doesn’t believe in pets, he’s a vegetarian, and if his following claims are correct, you can see why.

‘Fifty per cent of the fish that’s taken out of the ocean goes to livestock. The pig is the largest aquatic carnivore on the planet – it eats more fish than all the world’s sharks put together. Cats eat more fish than all the world’s seals put together.’

Watson has other claims too: puffins are starving in the North Sea because the sand eel is being fished to feed factory farm chickens in Denmark – the sand eel is the puffin’s main diet. Mass harvesting of plankton is being planned to provide protein paste to feed livestock, and every fish at a fish farm requires 70 fish from the ocean to feed it.  

Before you dismiss these claims, consider the research. A UK information website, Wildlife Britain, says that in some places in the United Kingdom there’s been a shortage of sand eels, which ‘has led to the drastic increase in the mortality of the young birds [puffins]’. They say, ‘The usual suspects of over-fishing and global warming are thought to be to blame, although it is difficult to prove.’

The research into farmed fish is even more interesting. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says that ‘aquaculture is contributing to over-fishing through the use of wild-caught fish as feed for farmed fish’.

They claim that to produce just one kilogram of farmed tuna up to 22 kilograms of wild-caught fish is needed; one kilogram of farmed salmon needs four kilograms of wild-caught fish; and up to two kilograms of wild-caught fish is needed to produce one kilogram of farmed marine shrimp.

A 2000 article in Nature [volume 405] titled Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies confirms that ‘some types of aquaculture activity, including shrimp and salmon farming, potential damage to ocean and coastal resources through habitat destruction, waste disposal, exotic species and pathogen invasions, and large fish meal and fish oil requirements may further deplete wild fisheries stocks’. It goes on to say, ‘The diversity of production systems leads to an underlying paradox: aquaculture is a possible solution, but also a contributing factor, to the collapse of fisheries stocks worldwide.’

Watson’s choice to become vegetarian is based on this. ‘I cannot justify eating [meat], I’m totally opposed to eating seafood primarily, but I can’t justify the eating of meat because of its contribution to the destruction of marine wildlife. I always get called an animal rights person and this type of thing, but I’ve always been a conservationist, but I feel that veganism and vegetarianism, are essential if you are going to be a really committed and dedicated conservationist or environmentalist. The amount of greenhouse gases produced by the meat industry is greater than the amount of gases produced by the automobile industry. Al Gore didn’t mention that.’

According to the United Nation’s Livestock’s Long Shadow report, published in 2006, the meat industry contributes more to greenhouse gases than not only the automobile industry but the transport industry as a whole. The report claims that the world’s livestock industry ‘generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2’. And that ‘livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport’.

The report based its assessment on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account both direct impacts and those of feed-crop agriculture required for livestock production. The livestock sector emerged as one of the top significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale, from local to global. The findings of the report suggested the industry should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change, air pollution, water shortage and pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

A statement of Watson’s that was well publicised in the United States was ‘A vegan driving a Hummer contributes less to global greenhouse emissions than a meat-eater riding a bicycle.’ While this is most quotable, research, including that from the University of Chicago, indicates it’s more likely to be: a vegan (who contributes the equivalent of 0.19 tonnes of CO2 through their food consumption) driving a Prius (which contributes around 2.1 tonnes after covering a distance of 12,000 miles) contributes about the same greenhouse gases as an average meat-eater (around 2.19 tonnes) on a bicycle. For those interested, a Hummer at 12,000 miles contributes around 8.5 tonnes per year.
Regardless, his point is evident – eating meat contributes enormously to greenhouse gases. Watson says he doesn’t know why there is such resistance to vegetarianism, except to suggest that it impinges on the lifestyles of individuals, and that, while people may be in favour of conservation, this is too much of a sacrifice for most people.
‘It’s true that no one wants to touch it. An example: we boarded with the Greenpeace ship, well I didn’t, but my crew did, in South Africa, while we were both there, and they were on an anti-fishing campaign but they were all serving whole fish dinners, big fish dinners. And one of my crew said “well this is ridiculous” and the cook said “well you gotta eat”. My crew member replied “well our ships are vegan”,and the cook said “well that’s just plain silly”. But people can’t adapt to it, to that whole thing. I mean, I was raised on seafood. I lived in a town where the poor kids went to school with lobster sandwiches because that was the cheapest meat in town. We thought baloney and peanut butter was exotic.’

Watson has many criticisms of the organisation he helped found all those years ago. He publicly accuses David McTaggart, former CEO of Greenpeace, of being a ‘crook’. He says, ‘David McTaggart pretty much manipulated all the original people out of the organisation, including Bob [Robert] Hunter, who was the first president of Greenpeace, and he did it basically for his personal fiefdom. And when I say he’s a crook, he’s dead now, but I said it when he was alive, I said [to him] “You tell me how a bankrupt businessman becomes a multi-millionaire ten years after taking over a non-profit society and retires to a villa in Italy. If I’m lying, sue me”, but he never sued me.’

Watson says when he made this accusation, Greenpeace turned against the Sea Shepherd and the war was on. Watson says, ‘He [McTaggart] took it away from animals, he was totally opposed to the animals. Even though people think Greenpeace is protecting seals, they haven’t been to a seal hunt since the mid eighties. Their whole position on whaling is that they neither condemn nor condone.’

In perhaps the most inflammatory quote in our interview, Watson says …
Find out in Part 3 later this week

Text: Lisa Louden
Research: Steve Nietz, Lisa Louden
Photography: Dione Molnar

Captain Paul Watson has a blog at http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/commentary-and-editorial.html

Captain Paul Watson has been patrolling our seas for more than three decades in his bid to protect marine wildlife from the destruction of man. To some, he’s an environmental icon, a modern-day prophet sent to save our seas and the marine wildlife within them. To others, however, his irreverence for property means he’s something of an eco-terrorist. A man of contradictions, Watson is passionate, authoritative, self-congratulatory and proud. He’s also, as Lisa Louden reports, a fierce protector of an environment being plundered.

In an unpublished poem, Planet of Whales, Paul Watson wrote: ‘I am obsessed and driven mad with anger’. It’s an anger that’s been with him his whole life, which can be traced back to his childhood when he first experienced the injustice of cruelty. And it’s an emotion that hasn’t dulled with age. He’s just as angry now as he was back then, when he first started saving animals in the fishing village in Canada where he was raised.

‘When I was nine years old, I spent the summer at a beaver pond, swimming with the beavers. One particular young beaver I spent almost every day playing with. And the next summer, I couldn’t find them, they were all gone. I made enquiries and found out a trapper had killed them all during the winter. And I became pretty angry and began at the age of 10 freeing the animals from the trap lines. I always found the animals very understanding of what I was trying to do. I only got bitten a couple of times – a seagull got me once when it had its leg caught. But even the coyotes wouldn’t bite if you tried to release their leg from a trap … and then I would destroy the traps.’

There was another scandal when he started blocking deer hunting, and then an incident with a BB gun. ‘I got in real trouble because I shot a kid in the arse with a BB gun because he was about to shoot a bird,’ says Watson.

He says this incident has sparked criticism of him throughout his life. A case in point is Washington’s governor from 1976 to 1980, Dixy Lee Ray, who said in her book Trashing the Planet the incident was ‘early evidence of Watson’s insanity’.

He laughs at this. ‘In my town, every kid shot every other kid with a BB gun, I just happened to have a practical reason to shoot the kid that I did.’

His early attempts to save animals may have set a precedent, but he claims it was another incident that changed him and confirmed his life’s purpose. The incident occurred in 1975, when he was with Greenpeace – he was Greenpeace’s youngest co-founding member – and onboard a Zodiac (an inflatable boat) aiming to get between a Soviet harpooner and a pod of whales. Also onboard was cameraman Fred Easton. A Sperm Whale, injured from the harpoon and with ‘an eye about the size of a dinner plate’, swam furiously in their direction and passed less than 10 feet away. He says the whale looked at them with some sort of compassion and that’s when his life changed, ‘when a wounded Sperm Whale could’ve killed me and chose not to do so’.

‘Chose not to’ is an interesting turn of phrase. For those who believe that an animal can make that choice, it’s perfectly acceptable. For cynics, though, this turn of phrase is fuel for condemnation. It’s also, his critics say, designed for the media ‘sound bite’ – a short impact statement, used in this day and age that requires easily digestible news, where often a few words sum up complex issues. However, one can hardly criticise Watson for mastering this – with a serious message to deliver, appeasing the world’s media is just clever management.

His use of the term ‘chose’ makes me think of a line in Edie Brickell’s song What I Am that says ‘Religion is the smile on a dog.’ The line, about believing what you choose to believe, is used in anthropomorphic terms; the attribution of uniquely human motivation, characteristics or behaviour to non-human beings. Whether or not, however, you believe that a dog can smile, and whether or not it was only circumstantial that the whale ‘spared him’, one thing’s for certain, the consequence of Watson feeling ‘sort of indebted to that whale’ has sparked a lifetime of commitment towards whales and other marine wildlife.

More than 30 years ago, Watson founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Both the organisation and its founder have been labelled vigilantes, pirates and terrorists. For Watson, who says his organisation operates in accordance with the law under the United Nations’ World Charter for Nature, his actions are justifiable and unambiguous.

‘Our organisation is not set up like a protest organisation and it’s not an animal aid organisation. We are a marine wildlife habitat conservation organisation and we don’t protest. We intervene against illegal fishing and illegal exploitation of the world’s oceans.’

Watson claims those interventions have sunk more than 10 pirate ships, all undertaking illegal activities. He’s paid heavily for his convictions, as you’ll later discover, but despite the setbacks to his cause – the indiscriminate killings, the destruction of the marine environment – in all these years he hasn’t lost his drive to protect and conserve. It’s a destruction he says would never happen on land.

‘I don’t understand the insanity of killing whales, it makes absolutely no sense. And what we do to animals in the ocean would just never, ever be acceptable to animals on land. I mean, can you imagine – a trap line out of indiscriminate traps for a hundred miles across the jungle to kill everything that comes in contact [with it]. It just would never be tolerated.’

Society has, according to Watson, one set of values for animals on land and another for marine life. ‘Africans go and kill mountain gorillas, giraffes and elephants and they call it bush meat and the world condemns it and rightfully so, but there’s no difference between a tuna, a shark or a whale and a mountain gorilla – these are large predators, they are bush meat, but somehow or other, aquatic bush meat is okay [to hunt until it is endangered] but jungle bush meat is not.’

He admits to feeling frustration, but it only serves to spur him on. And there’s an undeniable pleasure in the way he conducts his missions; he enjoys the battle. There’s a likeable cheekiness to him that many people miss. It’s probably best explained by something I witnessed while waiting to interview him onboard the Steve Irwin when it docked in Melbourne in February. Watson was on the phone to a journalist. It was the first time they’d docked since the incident involving Sea Shepherd volunteers Australian Ben Potts and Brit Giles Lane boarding a Japanese whaling ship. The journalist asked Watson if he would have any trouble finding the Japanese whaling ship again when the Steve Irwin headed back out to sea. Chuckling confidently with a broad smile he said, ‘I think we’ll find them without any problem.’ He of course knew what very few did then; while onboard the Japanese whaler, Potts and Lane planted a tracking device.

Watson claims he copes with man’s inability to fully grasp that something dramatic needs to be done to save the planet by ‘acknowledging the insanity of my species’ and ‘having a sense of humour’. It’s this sense of humour and irreverence for property that caused a judge to remark at Watson’s 1993 criminal trial in Canada, where Watson was charged with three counts of criminal mischief for destroying drag trawler nets and causing the loss of $35 million in revenue (he faced two prison life sentences), that ‘everyone was dressed up except the defendant who was appearing to have a good time’. The case was thrown out and Watson walked.

Others, however, view Watson as insane and without humour. Mainly it’s wrapped up in their criticisms of his tactics, or more succinctly, his violent tactics – the same tactics that saw him voted off the board of Greenpeace in 1977 (later that year he founded Sea Shepherd).

Watson was among the Greenpeace group protesting the seal hunt when he threw some seal pelts into the water and then pulled a seal club out of a hunter’s hands and threw that in too. Many applauded his actions. Greenpeace didn’t. He was voted off the board 12 to one.

‘And there was a vote,’ Watson says, ‘but I was never thrown out of Greenpeace. This is the fallacy. I was voted off the board. I could’ve still been the campaign leader for Greenpeace. I was the voted off the board.’

Today, Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace are at loggerheads (more on that later), and he admits the vote hurt him. ‘Well yes, it hurt. And it angered me so much I quit.’

And it must have done. Here was an organisation that he helped found – when he was only 18 – with all the youthful zeal of a committed conservationist, and they kicked him off the board. Since then the criticisms have kept coming, but he claims he doesn’t care. ‘Well that’s fine. I don’t care what people call us or me, as long as we scare the hell out of the people we go after, and you know we do. They don’t kill whales when we show up,’ he says.

‘People call us violent; we’re not violent, we’re completely non-violent. We’ve got an unblemished history of non-violence. We’ve never caused a single injury to a single person anywhere in 30 years of operations. But there’s a perception of violence because we attack property even though that property is used for illegal purposes, because we live in a culture where property takes precedence over life.’

Sea Shepherd’s recent actions, however, throw this into question. In 2007, two Japanese crewman claim they were injured from butyric acid thrown on their vessel by Sea Shepherd crew members. Sea Shepherd admitted to throwing onboard six one-litre bottles of butyric acid. The same tactic was employed again this year.

When in contact with the skin, butyric acid can cause pain, redness and blisters, and if it comes in contact with the eyes can cause loss of vision. More controversially, according to industrial safety sheets butyric acid should not be released into the environment, as it’s harmful to aquatic organisms.

It’s these contradictions that don’t sit well with Watson’s critics. Paul Watson has been beaten up, shot, vilified and widely condemned. He’s lost friendships, spent time in prison and been declared persona non grata in Iceland. Does he feel then that he’s sacrificed himself for his cause? … find out in Part 2 next week

Captain Paul Watson has a blog at http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/commentary-and-editorial.html

Following the year anniversary of Black Saturday, the Adore Animals Foundation has identified four projects in the bushfire area we are committed to supporting. Funds from the book have already gone to Animal Aid to help with hands-on bushfire animal recovery and now we’re currently finalising these four local projects, which will all be funded by the sale of our book Moments of Connection.

And so you can help us help the animals, we’ve made it even easier to buy our book. Thanks to generous support from our new retail partners AWPL Retail Solutions, Moments of Connection is now available at airports across Australia. From Thursday February 18, AWPL Retail Solutions will sell our book at no profit to them. That’s right, thanks to the generous support of Costa and his team at AWPL Retail Solutions - just like sales on our website – all the proceeds from the sale of books at these stores will go straight to our bushfire appeal.

Not only that, to celebrate, we have dropped the price of Moments of Connection to just $29.90 to make it even more accessible – we’re not shy in admitting that we want to sell as many books as possible to fund these four projects. We don’t receive government or any other funding, so in line with social enterprise ideals, we produced Moments of Connection to create a win-win situation – you receive a benefit and so do the animals.  

AWPL are at airports across Australia – so if you or your friends are flying or picking up friends at the airport, purchasing is easy. And if you’re heading overseas to meet friends, this book with our front cover of Jo kissing a joey in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory is the perfect, iconic Australian gift!

From Thursday February 18, Moments of Connection is available at:

• News Travels – Melbourne Virgin
• News Travels – Sunshine Coast
• News Travels – Launceston
• Runaway News – Hobart
• Runaway News – Newcastle

Of course, you can still purchase the book right here on our website and get the book sent straight to your door. Did we mention it’s the perfect gift? Or if you’re in Melbourne and would like to save on postage, then you can also order the book online and do a free pick-up from our friends at Diggiddydoggydaycare in South Melbourne. Pick-up details are emailed with your order receipts.

So go on and get buying as there’s lots still to be done in the area. In the coming months we’ll announce our four projects – two in animal recovery and two in animal bushfire prevention.

Pandas are an endangered species, in fact, in the wild it’s thought only about 1,000 remain. Worldwide, zoos help boost the population with roughly 100 Giant Pandas in capavity including pandas, Wang Wang and Funi who arrived at Adelaide Zoo last December. The only Giant Pandas in the Southern Hemisphere and the first to live permanently in Australia, it’s hoped Wang Wang and Funi will one day breed to boost population numbers.

Not only are Giant Pandas rare, they’re highly elusive. Imagine then, my delight at finding this BBC footage of Giant Pandas in the wild narrated by the guru himself, David Attenborough. I hope you enjoy it too!

Founded in 1987, with six Giant Pandas, The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is a non-profit organisation engaged in wildlife research, captive breeding, conservation education and educational tourism. They also care for the endangered Red Panda. To find out more click here.

To see this video in high definition and our other favourite animal videos from across the globe, visit the Adore Animals YouTube channel.

Hope from the Kinglake Fires

King Parrot Creek – Inside the Kinglake Fire Zone

Between Kinglake and Strath Creek in Victoria is King Parrot Creek, venue of the 2009 Kinglake fires. Following a fire, the water quality of creeks and rivers can be severely affected, not just from riparian damage during a fire, but from quantities of silt entering waterways in the days, weeks and even months following. Imagine then – with the ferocity and intensity of Black Saturday – the effect on King Parrot Creek’s water quality.

King Parrot Creek is home to the endangered Macquarie Perch. A great little fish, the Macquarie Perch is found in both river and lake habitats; especially the upper reaches of rivers and their tributaries. They are a quiet, cautious fish and can be black, silver-grey, blue-grey or green-brown in colour.

During the Victorian bushfires, as the Kinglake fires and others blackened the earth, the Macquarie Perch began to suffer. Already under stress due to drought and a parasitic infection and now facing reduced water quality, the future of King Parrot Creek’s endangered Macquarie Perch looked at best, precarious.

As part of a National Recovery Program for Macquarie Perch, this population of fish were being closely monitored. In the beginning of March 2009, with water quality deteriorating, the decision was made to relocate the fish and the Department of Sustainability and Environment staff had the job of catching them.

In total, 35 Macquarie Perch were caught and transported to fish refuges. MDBA Native Fish and Community Engagement Officer at the Arthur Rylah Institute, Fern Hames, who is also part of the recovery team, says the Macquarie Perch were ‘in grim condition’.

Shortly after relocation, three fish died, but Vern says they were surprised there weren’t more deaths. The drought, the parasites and then the fire – these fish had been through so much, and now they were also coping with a new environment. Vern says, ‘we were thinking we would lose more’.

Under excellent care in their relocated areas, however, the Macquarie Perch thrived. So much so, on December 3, 2009 they were returned to King Parrot Creek.

‘We took them out rather thin and in poor health and we returned them fat and healthy,’ says Vern. ‘And so far so good – the fish are doing well.’

Immediately following the Kinglake fires, things looked mighty grim for King Parrot Creek’s population of Macquarie Perch. And although they are still an endangered species and are far from being declared otherwise, at least for this population of 32, they have survived and the future is positive.

Raising Money for Animals in the Kinglake Fire Zone

In remembering the anniversary of Black Saturday, for the month of February we’ll feature the progress of more endangered and endemic wildlife affected by the Victorian fires. We’ll also announce four local animal projects – two endangered species recovery projects and two preventative projects – all in the Black Saturday bushfire area. Our projects are supported from funds raised from our coffee-table book Moments of Connection. To help, click here.

The recovery team will continue to monitor the Macquarie Perch’s progress and we’ll keep you updated.

Helping Animals Recover from Kinglake fire and Black Saturday Bushfires

If you would like to help the animal victims of the Kinglake fires, you can buy a copy of Moments of Connection by the Adore Animals Foundation. A beautiful coffee table book demonstrating the positive relationship between children and animals.

Profits raised from this book go to animal recovery projects.  Click here to get your Copy

Elephants can be mischievous and cheeky and as this rare footage of elephants show, just like human boys, what good fun it is to act rough and tumble, splash and role-play.  

You can also view this clip in larger format on our Favourites list at the Adore Animals Foundation You Tube Channel.

Text: Lisa Louden

If you haven’t seen body art before, in Australia our shining exponent of the craft is Emma Hack. This talented artist takes her body art to new and unique dimensions through her choice of medium, and her latest exhibition featuring native Australian animals is no exception. Distinctive, captivating and beautiful, Emma’s art is raising eyebrows, issues and money.

Body Art 08 was inspired by the wallpaper designs of the late Florence Broadhurst. Broadhurst is a muse Emma’s used before; both Emma’s use of the medium and its creative application sets her work apart from her peers. This time, however, a Broadhurst wallpaper design inspired her creativeness in an unusual way. It was also the first time Emma has photographed her own work for exhibitions.

‘I was looking through the archive [of Broadhurst’s work] and saw the crocodile print and I knew then I wanted to use this and have a real crocodile in it. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to find.’

Eventually, after months of searching, she found Remabi Park in South Australia, an education facility designed to teach people of all ages about Australian wildlife. Animals from the park are used to being handled, and considering some of the animals are painted – using water-based body paint, safe for skin and fur – the exhibition couldn’t have been created using ‘regular’ wildlife. Interestingly, Emma says the animals seemed to enjoy the attention.

‘The lizard [water dragon] just sat there and watched me paint it and really seemed to enjoy it,’ she says. ‘It was fascinating seeing it watching me so intently, like it was really interested in what I was doing.’

Some animals were more challenging to paint than others. ‘I don’t know who said that turtles were slow,’ says Emma, ‘It’s not true! They were so quick.’

Wallpaper Owl - Emma Hack

Emma has always loved animals and in particular is drawn to birds. ‘I fell in love with the owl in the shoot,’ she says, who responded to the intermittent beeping of her cameras in between shots with a curious turn of its head from camera to camera. ‘He was so aware of everything.’

With wildlife carers in tow to ensure safety and appropriate handling, the animals’ needs always came first. Despite the adage that you should never work with children or animals, Emma says the whole process was calming and enjoyable. ‘It was such a lovely vibe working with all of them. Hanging out with animals is such a wonderful way to work.’

It’s not the first time Emma has featured animals in her work. Inspired by the travelling fibreglass cow exhibition Cow Parade, she wondered what it would be like to use real cows in an exhibition. The end result was Cowscape, her first exhibition featuring animals, which raised funds for the South Australian Farmers Federation to help relieve the current hardship faced by farmers due to drought. Similarly, the opening night of Body Art 08 raised funds for the Native Animal Network, and the exhibition is also designed to raise awareness of the plight of wildlife in their diminishing habitats.

Tawny Frogmouth - Emma Hack

During the painting sessions, Emma was aware of keeping calm and being respectful to the animal during the process. When she painted the cows, for instance, she always made sure they knew where she was by keeping her free hand on them while she painted.

Body art has a large following in Europe and the United States, but it’s not as well known in Australia. The portrait of a naked, painted and pregnant Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991 catapulted it into the public eye. A make-up artist by trade, Emma has always had a love of art and started face painting while at school for pocket money. The painted faces from the musical Cats captivated and inspired her, and also made her realise she could make a career out of her passion. Now, her CV is crammed with interesting and varied designs for clients from both Australian and overseas.

Body art traditionally uses the nude human form, and when Emma first began, she says she felt ‘really uncomfortable’ painting nude bodies, despite the fact for her it’s never been about sexuality. ‘I don’t see what I do as sexual; it’s a sensual thing. It’s about not being nude or being exploited.’

Wallpaper Red Bird - Emma Hack

Emma says she always asks her model what they feel uncomfortable about in relation to their bodies and tries to cover it. ‘It’s about feeling good, so if something doesn’t feel good to the model, it will come out in the shoot.’

Interestingly, the use of animals achieved what sometimes can’t be when using human subjects – it eliminated nudity. It also exposed Emma’s work to a new audience, and animal aficionados have responded to it in droves by buying her work.

‘Anyone who buys an image and wants to put it on their wall, that is the biggest compliment I can receive,’ says Emma. ‘It means they enjoy my work enough to look at it every day.’

Body painting can take anything from three to six hours depending on the complexity of the design, so models need stamina. One case in point was an intricate Broadhurst design that took a staggering 21 hours to complete. The crocodile image Evolution was also time-consuming, but well worth the effort.

‘I cried when I finished that piece because I loved it so much,’ says Emma. ‘It was exactly what I wanted to create.’

Evolution Crocodile - Emma Hack

For more of Emma’s work or to book a commission go to www.emmahack.com.au

It’s the festive season so we thought this video from the BBC’s animal show Weird Nature would be an apt way to bring in the New Year. These Vervet Monkeys on the island of St Kitts in the Caribbean have developed quite a taste for alcohol, so much so, they’ve even been the subject of several studies (with interesting comparisons to human populations).

As with these oblivious patrons, if you’re reaching for your cocktail on St Kitts and it’s suddenly not there, now you’ll know exactly who to blame!

Australians are proving time and again that when it comes to animals, our scientists and trainers are world class. None more so than Dr Andrew McLean, a renowned horse trainer who now, in a remarkable twist of circumstance, has applied his training techniques to elephants. What’s even more astounding, however, is that Dr McLean is sharing his techniques in Nepal, a country where domesticated elephants have long been part of the culture. And as Anna Clemann reports, both elephant and trainer are responding to his techniques with enthusiasm and success.

In Nepal, the management of domestic elephants began in 1903, with records showing 31 separate elephant camps with more than 300 elephants throughout Nepal’s lowlands.

Today in Nepal, elephants remain a vital part of the economy and culture. These majestic animals are used for tourism, rural activities, farming, for chasing away and cleaning up after poachers, and in religious and cultural ceremonies.

To accommodate these uses, the Nepalese train elephants to respond to more than 80 different commands. Training an elephant that can weigh as much as three-and-a-half tonnes, however, can be problematic if the subject doesn’t respond to the technique. The Nepalese methods, passed down through generations, have resulted in aggressive responses from elephants and even death to trainers. When the training was successful, it often took months to achieve even simple instructions.

Dr McLean, director of the Australian Equine Behaviour Centre, best-selling author and world-renowned horse trainer and ethologist, says that being guided by tradition, the Nepalese approach is unsystematic. It’s also at a disadvantage as it excludes modern, efficient principles of learning and reinforcement.

Ethology is the study of the behaviour of animals in relation to their normal environments, and Dr McLean is considered the world expert when it comes to ridden animals. And he’s in demand, conducting clinical ethology clinics in 12 countries and promoting ethical training clinics worldwide.

Despite the size difference, the jump from training horses to elephants is not a big one, but the impetus to do so is, and it came from a chance meeting. The Finnish World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) recognised a need in Nepal and wanted to implement a step-by-step program for training elephants based on ‘learning theory’. They searched European zoos for an appropriate trainer but to no avail. Then the team discovered Dr McLean when he was conducting a clinic in Helsinki, and they knew they had found their trainer.

To prepare for working with elephants, Dr McLean first spent time at the Perth Zoo to familiarise himself with elephant behaviour and then with the trainers at Melbourne Zoo to learn how they work with elephants.

Dr McLean formulised a step-by-step program focusing on both teaching the elephants to become comfortable with people and positive reinforcement to train them. The training begins with food rewards and incorporates the use of vibrations on the elephants’ ear and neck to tell them to move forward, back and turn to one side or the other. Once this has been accomplished, trainers progress to using less food and increased pressure, which encourages the elephant to move quicker, with the reward then becoming the release of the pressure. The final step of the program is to habituate the elephant to a rider, and to pass the signals from a trainer on the ground to the person riding the elephant.

‘We started with positive reinforcement such as food rewards to train the elephants to respond to signals such as the pressure for go, stop and turn,’ says Dr McLean. ‘Once they [the elephants] began to understand, we fazed out the reinforcement and start using the pressure techniques more, and then gradually brought these down to a light touch with a voice command.’

Photo: earning a food reward

By using the program, the Nepalese trainers were teaching elephants commands in a matter of days that had previously taken months to achieve using traditional methods. By the fourth day of training, the Nepalese trainers were riding the elephants and could direct them to move forward, backwards and turn.

In the teaching method, Dr McLean says, ‘I just refined what [the trainers] were already doing to make it more humane, and helped them to understand what actions would work and what actions might make [the elephants] react aggressively.’

The Nepalese responded with grace and enthusiasm. ‘They are the most wonderful, gentle, caring and happy people I have ever met and they were really willing to learn,’ says Dr McLean.

In fact, they were so eager to learn these techniques that they would practice at home that night after learning it with Dr McLean that day. ‘At one of the sessions we established how to teach an elephant to lie down. Some of the trainers practiced this in the evenings and then showed us the next day what they had achieved – this made us feel like they were happy to embrace what we were teaching them.’

Photo: learning how to turn an elephant

Dr McLean says that working with elephants is not so different to working with horses; both are very intelligent animals that respond well to positive reinforcement and learn very quickly. There is, however, an anatomical difference he had to adjust to.

‘The trunk is like a loose cannon. Sometimes when I would be using pressure techniques, the elephant would use its trunk to hold my arm away,’ he says.

Dr McLean found, however, that the elephants were as caring and affectionate as the Nepalese people and discovered a connection with them.

‘Elephants touch more overtly affectionately [than horses]. You can feel it with horses, but elephants are more like dogs with their affection.’

The program has proven so successful that other countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand and India are also interested in working with Dr McLean and the Finnish WWF and WSPA team. The Nepalese are also eager for the team to return.  

Dr McLean is too. ‘It was very rewarding from a personal point of view and I felt quite an affinity with the elephants,’ 

No doubt the elephants felt it too.

Photo: sharing a moment

All photographs: Courtesy of Dr Andrew McLean

This video from BBC’s Animal Camera on the flight of the Bumblebee provides another amazing insight into their behaviour with the discovery of ‘bee lines’. Tracked with radar transponders utilising the latest micro-technology, this is a three-minute reminder of just how sophisticated even the humblest of animals are.

You can also view this clip in a larger format on our Favourites list at the Adore Animals Foundation YouTube channel.