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The Whale Warriors

The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
In the tradition of The Perfect Storm, The Whale Warriors takes us on a hair-raising journey aboard a whale-saving pirate ship with a vigilante crew whose mission is to stop illegal Japanese whaling in the stormy remote seas off Antarctica.


For two months, journalist Peter Heller rode aboard the vegan pirate ship Farley Mowat as it stalked its prey—a Japanese whaling fleet—through the storms and ice of Antarctica. The ship is black, flies under a jolly roger, and carries members of the Sea Shepherd Society, a radical environmental group who are willing to die to stop illegal whale hunting.


The Sea Shepherd ship, led by the charismatic Captain Paul Watson—a modern-day anti-Ahab—takes extreme risks in defense of whales and ratchets up the stakes. The ship is almost sunk twice, once in a force gale. Heller re-creates a nail-biting showdown when Watson and the crew attempt to ram an enormous Japanese whaling ship on the high seas, trying to tear open its hull with a steel blade called a "can opener." The crews on board both ships know that there will be no assistance in this desolate part of the ocean. In thirty-five-foot seas, it is a deadly game of Antarctic chicken and a fast-paced, rollicking adventure in which the stakes cannot be higher.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      The crew of the R/V FARLEY MOWAT, owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, sail the Antarctic Ocean to destroy the property of people involved in illegal whaling. They kill no one. The author, aboard on assignment, describes an adventure more gripping than any novel. Narrator James Boles pronounces each word as if it were the most important. His distinctive manner of speaking adds color to the clever similes and portraits of the motley sailors out to save every creature in the sea. His deep voice will hook the listener to a lesson on the environment that seems of little interest to the world so far. The author's descriptive ability and a narrator who can hone it to vocal rapture make for a listening experience that never stops being captivating and informative. J.A.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 3, 2007
      In late 2005, award-winning adventure writer Heller joined Paul Watson and his 44-person crew on their voyage to find and halt an illegal Japanese whaling fleet en route to the Antarctic sea. Watson, founder of Greenpeace in 1972, says he abruptly left in 1977 to start his current group, Sea Shepherd, because he wanted to take intervening action to enforce international laws; others say he was "ejected for grabbing a sealer's club and throwing it in the water." Either way, Watson is a controversial leader who compels "people to drop everything-jobs, loves, homes-and follow him to the ends of the earth"; one of Watson's all-volunteer staff says, "I don't want to die, of course... But if I die looking to save a whale, that would be OK." Heller's writing is energetic and bold, at times a swashbuckling adventure, at others a portrait of a determined eco-warrior, at others a heart-rending expose on the cruelty of whalers (who use explosive-tipped harpoons and electrocuting currents against the great animals). Shocking and repulsing, Heller's adventures will inspire many readers to agree that "If the oceans are dying in our time, and we kill them... we should have committed a crime so heinous we shall not ever be redeemed."

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  • English

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