AS SEEN ON TV: PAUL WATSON

PAUL WATSON

AS SEEN IN:

'South Park'

AS PLAYED BY:

Matt Stone or Trey Parker, beats me......

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's Paul Watson talked to Jennifer Vogel of Mother Jones magazine about taking a bullet from the Japanese, and 'Whale Wars', his new series on Animal Planet.

MJ: Are you willing to sacrifice your life to save a single whale?

PW: We do that all the time. The one thing we won't do is injure anybody or take their life. Despite that, we're still called terrorists. But we aren't even a protest organization. We're intervening against illegal activities.

MJ: Is it true that during the filming of 'Whale Wars' you were shot by someone on a Japanese whaling ship?

PW: They did fire shots. And they actually informed the Australian government that they had fired shots. Until they heard that I was hit. Then they called the Australian government and said that wasn't true, in fact they didn't fire any shots. But the cameras, the audio equipment picked up the sound of the shots and the bullet was lodged in my Kevlar vest. Then of course the Japanese said we'd fabricated the whole thing. I'd shot myself or it was done before. But I was doing an interview with the Animal Planet people just prior to that confrontation where you can plainly see there is no bullet hole there. And in the middle of the conversation suddenly there is a bullet hole there. So, how that happened without them actually shooting me, they can't really explain.

This was depicted in the 'South Park' episode "Whale Whores". But Parker & Stone took it a wee bit further.......

BCnU!