A Year of Direct-Action Marine Conservation: 2017 in Review

📁 Archive Document — Historical Record

This article was first published when our charity's original name/branding as 'Sea Shepherd UK' prior to our name change on 18th May 2023 following the removal of Captain Paul Watson from Sea Shepherd entities worldwide (with the exception of the UK, France and Brazil).

Captain Paul Watson remains a member of our Board, and our charity continues to uphold its founding principles of non-violent direct action marine conservation.

This article and its contents are the property of the 'Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK' and forms part of our 21 year history.

Learn more at paulwatsonfoundation.uk/new-name

Thanks to generous supporters, passionate volunteers, and hard-working crew, 2017 marked one of the most active years of UK-based direct-action marine conservation to date. Operations ran from the Danish Faroe Islands to beaches and coastlines across the United Kingdom, with volunteers working in partnership with local communities to expose the continued slaughter of cetaceans, retrieve lethal ghost fishing gear from the sea, and remove tons of marine debris from shores.

Three core UK campaigns drove the year's work — each one now continued under the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK:

Operation Bloody Fjords — Pilot Whale and Dolphin Defence Campaign in the Faroe Islands

Ten weeks of covert land-based patrols were coordinated during July and early September, deploying 18 volunteer crew from the UK and France across six Faroese towns covering 19 designated whaling bays. The teams documented nine separate grindadráp, accounting for the deaths of 436 pilot whales and 198 Atlantic white-sided dolphins. Crew also recorded — for the first time — the full commercial chain from a grindadráp at Hvannasund, through the processing at Klaksvík, to the sale of pilot whale meat and blubber in the main supermarket in Tórshavn less than 48 hours later.

In parallel, formal legal action continued at the European level. In May 2017, a complaint was submitted to the European Commission — with the support of 27 Members of the European Parliament and over 250,000 members of the public — requesting infringement proceedings against Denmark for facilitating the slaughter of cetaceans in contravention of the EU Habitats Directive. When the Commission issued a deficient one-page reply in September dismissing the case without engaging the evidence, a formal follow-up response was sent demanding specific legal justifications. The fight continues.

Operation Ghostnet — Ghost Fishing Gear Retrieval

Abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear — "ghost nets" — is one of the most lethal forms of marine debris on the planet, continuing to kill fish, cetaceans, seals, seabirds and turtles long after the vessels that set it have left. Retrieval operations targeted known hotspots where ghost gear accumulates, working with local divers and volunteers to locate, recover and document the nets. Each retrieval removes a silent killer from the water.

Marine Debris — Worldwide Beach Cleanup Campaign

On-shore volunteer teams ran regular beach cleans along UK coastlines, removing plastics, fishing gear and other marine debris before it could re-enter the sea. These operations serve two purposes: the immediate removal of physical waste, and the documentation of what is washing ashore — data that feeds back into source-tracking, policy pressure, and public awareness of the scale of ocean plastic pollution.