Whale Murder

They harpooned a female in the head. She screamed and it’s a sound like a woman screaming and then this huge male slapped his tail on the water and hurled himself at the Soviet ship. They harpooned him and he fell back and swam right at us and reared up out of the water. We thought, This is it, he’s going to slam down on us, it’s all over. But he didn’t. He pulled back at the last moment and spared our lives and as he slid back into the water we saw his eye, which was the size of a dinner plate and in that whale’s eye I saw recognition, compassion, empathy, an understanding. Something passed between us and it changed my life for ever.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)