Paul Watson

With his long silver locks and rugged beard, Paul Watson resembles a modern-day Captain Ahab, the fictional whaler in Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. But he’s trying to save whales, not destroy them. For decades, the US-Canadian has waged a sea campaign against the bloody business of whalers, notorious for their use of explosive harpoons to maim and kill their prey. At one point Mr Watson’s antics were so popular that he was the star of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, Whale Wars, which followed his Sea Shepherd crew as they used guerilla-style tactics to block and harass whaling ships. But a new twist in an ongoing legal battle between Mr Watson and the Japanese whaling industry could mean that he never sets sail again.