Sea Shepherd Tells Greenpeace to Go Vegan

Founder of vegan environmental organization Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson penned an op-ed on Huffington Post to address the hypocrisy of serving animal products aboard Greenpeace ships. Watson’s commentary was sparked by a Facebook post wherein crew members from the Greenpeace Esperanza—one of three Greenpeace ships—posed the question “Should we eat meat on board Greenpeace ships?” Watson co-founded Greenpeace in 1971 but left in 1978 to found Sea Shepherd where he instituted a vegan policy across all nine ships by 1998. The captain points out that the issue of whether animals products belong on Greenpeace’s menus has been up for debate for decades, with little policy change. Watson recounts an instance when he was invited to dine on Esparanza in 2005, and discovered that meat was served for dinner. “Were shocked to see they were serving a fish dinner on the eve of departing on a campaign to protect fish,” Watson says. “Vegan meals fit into our mutual primary motivation—to save this planet from ourselves,” Watson explains, before urging the organization to stop serving animal products aboard their ships.