1. Can you tell us a little about - what is was like in Sea Shepherd ..?
SS is like a sect. Only their opinion counts. They don't want to hear your thoughts about things. You have to sign a contract that says that you could be forced to pay a fine if you bring inside information out ... So, you are bound to the oath of secrecy. And their rules are the SS law, so it is done the way they want to do it, you can't say anything against them. Even as a motivated volunteer, you'll never get to hear the whole story within SS. There is something like a coreteam and only those members who take part in that team, get to hear all secret information. In Belgium, this team is put together by the director (a real bitch) and she select only people she likes. When you enter as a new member and you say that you have certaine skills, you can get selected by her to join the coreteam. But only by saying you can do things ... Realy, we have seen lots of people coming and going again. She doesn't count your motivation, your experience within the organisation. If she can't stand you, you won't get selected to the coreteam. The most unreliable persons were selected to join the coreteam. All the pictures you make during the campaign, even if those have nothing to do with whales, are of the organization. You can't use your pictures without asking their permission. You can't even post your own pictures on your Facebook profile ... You are also bound with a contract to use media.
2. Is it true - that everybody is a vegan ..? Also the landcrew ..?
No, this is very double. They can't check this if somebody is a vegan or not. But they don't try to eighter. We even had a volunteer last year during the campaign who ate tuna right onther our noses ...! So I called Rosie Kunneke and asked her if we could throw him out for this and she said to give him another chance ... Can you believe this? So they realy are hypocrites! Here in Belgium, even the director is not a vegan. Her husband eats meat at his work and he does a lot for SS, he manages their website and helps them out to organise events, ... Most of the SS volunteers are meat eaters. And they don't ask questions to their donators. They except money from everybody. Realy, the vegan rule is one big joke! I believe that if they would come out as a real strictly vegan organization, they would lose a lot of volunteers ... Almost nobody was vegan last year. The most of them just ate vegetarian food during the campaign, some of them even for the first time.
To be continued ...
Jógvan á Høvdanum (junior) 18.09.2015