A review by crafalsk264
The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals by Peter Heller

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

I have read several of Heller’s fictional works and been enthralled with them all. This is the first of his nonfiction works. In 2007, Heller spent two months aboard an environmental pirate ship Farley Mowatas it stalked its prey—the Japanese whaling fleet—through the ice and stormy weather of the Antarctic. The ship is crewed by members of the Sea Shepherd Society, a radical environmental group whose crew is willing to do anyone to stop the illegal whale hunting.

Captain Paul Watson is something of a pirate himself—willing to break the law, be incarcerated and takes unacceptable risks to his ship and crew to stop attacks on in endangered whales. While on board, Heller witnesses the Farley Mowat’s attempt to ram a huge Japanese factory whaling ship.

This book and the whole environmental catastrophe is a contradiction. The volunteers are dedicated but there are differences in degrees of political/social convictions (freegans, vegans, vegetarians). They are committed and willing but woefully untrained and inexperienced which hampers their ability to act as a coordinated crew. Heller looks at the issue as a journalist so he couches the issues of whaling in terms of political, societal, scientific and ethical concerns. He presents information on the history and economics of the industry. He has also endeavored to present the nonfiction material in as entertaining way as a fiction offering. He succeeds to an extent but not as well as some others. However I suggest that readers concerned with environmental convention read this thought provoking work.