In response to the Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to strike the ban on the sale of videos depicting cruelty to animals, Representative Elton Gallegly (R-CA) and 55 other representatives introduced H.R. 5092, a bill to ban the distribution and sale of crush videos. The Humane Society of the United States reminds us that we can help by contacting our representatives asking them to support the law.

We added 27 new restaurants to the guide this week (Thanks, Cathy!), including Organic Village in Forest Hills, Victory Bhaven in Staten Island, and Sunlife Health Food and Juice Bar in the Bronx. See all the new restaurants here, and don't forget to leave a review if you've been!

This week on "Law & Order: SVU," the show whose following, I'm guessing, is rivaled only by Oprah's, a woman is murdered while filming "an unflinching expose of meat," NBC's description says. Did you catch it? If so, how much did they get into the business of slaughter?

KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure launched their "Buckets for the Cure" promotion. For every bucket of chicken sold, KFC will donate 50 cents to Komen now through 5/9. People are rightfully grossed out. I mean, shit is crazy! Since when is the relationship between fried dead chicken pieces and cancer-fighting a mutually symbiotic one? Never ever ever!

Quarrygirl let us know that Starbucks is going to sell vegan frappuccinos. I hate coffee, but whatever! Yay!

Do you like your shredded carrots raw? Birdbath Bakery has your hippie food right here: the Old School Vegetarian Sandwich.

A few reminders for ya:

Our very own Patrick Kwan will be a judge at Veggie Conquest Sunday. (Hint: toss some Daiya cheese on that shit and he will love it!)

The Sea Shepherd's flagship, the Steve Irwin is docked right here in NYC and you can go INSIDE it!

The bake sale to support Darwin Animal Doctors at Vegan Drinks is Thursday, April 29, 7-9 p.m. at Angels & Kings. Bring a to-go container -- Laura Dakin of Sea Shepherd will be baking some serious treats!

Looking for that special vegan with whom you can celebrate/not have to think about your lifestyle? Let us help. Check out Date This Vegan and you might just find the one.

Australian activist Nicola Paris has been cooking vegan food for Sea Shepherd pirates on board the Steve Irwin for three Antarctic whale defense campaigns and much of the last two years. Her posts are written from the ship and transmitted on a delay.

April 15, 2010:

What has led to here…

So I just finished up with my third Antarctic campaign defending the whales aboard Sea Shepherd's flagship, the Steve Irwin. This year's Antarctic campaign was pretty successful, and full on, and tiring - and then we stopped in Hobart, Australia for just 10 days. And many of us who had been working nonstop for months, are now still on board and heading up to the Northern Hemisphere.

I am in the role of head cook for the 6 week transit - stepping in whilst our regular head cook Laura takes a break. So it's all up to me... On the to do list: make 3 meals a day, plus fresh bread, plus afternoon tea and treats and dessert for 18 people, use all the fresh produce in the right order before it rots, get creative when we run out of fresh produce, don't cut/grate/burn myself too many times a day on rocking seas, drive everyone insane with whatever cheesy music is coming out of my stereo (gotta dance and cook at the same time), keep some semblance of hygiene and order to the place, rotate the stock, ration out the treats... oh, and make sure the food keeps people happy and avoid a mutiny. What the bloody hell was I thinking?!

As you may know, the Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin is coming to New York City. Our docking info is finalized for the ship's New York visit:

New Jersey
Date: April 24-25
Location: Bayshore Recycling, 75 Crows Mill Rd, Keasbey, NJ 08832
Additional Information: Join the ship’s crew for the Earth Day celebration in conjunction with Clean Ocean Action and Edison Wetlands.

New York
Date: April 26- 30
Location: Chelsea Piers, Pier 59, 62 Chelsea Piers # 300, NY, NY 10011-1015

And when the ship is here in New York City, you'll have a chance to meet Paul Watson! A few of us will be working the April 30th event, A NYC Evening For the Oceans, at which Paul will speak. He's a VERY good orator, so you don't want to miss this.

It's going to be a relatively small event, so you'll definitely get a chance to get close to him.

And there will be food from Candle Cafe and Vegan Treats, so it will be worth the price of entry. :)

The Japanese whaling catch this year is the lowest it has been in a long time, and the whalers place the blame of the low catch firmly on Sea Shepherd.

According to the AFP:

The fleet's catch of 507 whales was down sharply on last year's cull of 680 and below the target of about 850, said Japan's Fisheries Agency, which blamed a total of 31 days of harassment by the Sea Shepherd group

"I am furious," said the whaling fleet's leader Shigetoshi Nishiwaki. Also of note in the article, is Nishiwaki's comments on how irresponsible we were to let him ram and slice our Sea Shepherd ship in half so it would sink.

He charged that the activists "say they want to protect the ocean, but they don't care about leaking oil or leaving pieces of a broken ship behind", a reference to the group's sunken powerboat the Ady Gil.

Although Sea Shepherd had removed all the fuel from the Ady Gil before it sank, Nishiwaki's comments are still reported to be hilarious.

Yes, the Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin is coming to New York City, from April 23rd to May 3rd. And we need volunteers to help! No experience necessary!



Which exact dock it's going to arrive at in the city is being confirmed, and we'll let you know as soon as confirmation happens.

If you can volunteer, please email nyc@seashepherd.org and state what days you can volunteer, how long on each day, and which position you can assist with. There will be a volunteer meeting/ training a few days before the ship arrives.

We'll also need food donations for crew, for the ship's upcoming campaign to fight tuna extinction in the Mediterranean.

(More information after the jump)

An update on the current Antarctic campaign, from Sea Shepherd crew member Andrea Gordon.

This message was transmitted to New York from the Bob Barker vessel via satellite.


So lots went on here yesterday - everything has been a really intense emotional rollercoaster. In the morning, we were told the campaign was over and we had to go back to port. I took the news really hard. Every day we were with the Nisshin Maru, I was just so happy knowing the whales were protected and safe. We had such an amazing and successful campaign, but going back to port knowing the whalers were still down here with the whales isn't easy. I didn't have much time to dwell on it though, because 30 minutes after that, we saw the Yushin Maru #3 on the horizon. We hadn't seen that ship since it rammed us at the beginning of the month. Everyone jumped back into gear, we sent the small boat after the Yushin, packed with butyric acid, paint, and some angry Sea Shepherds ;) The small boat chased the Yushin through the ice at 15 knots, and the Yushin just slammed into a lot of the ice, risking damaging their ship to get away from our boat.

An update on the current Antarctic campaign, from Sea Shepherd crew member Andrea Gordon.

This message was transmitted to New York from the Bob Barker vessel via satellite.


Hey Tod!  I never know if its Saturday or Tuesday down here!  No days off on Antarctic whale saving duty!  Its amazing that with a ship full of volunteers no one complains about not getting a day off or paid for over three months.  There's actually not that much to do on deck at the moment since the seas are still pretty big.

The Nisshin Maru seems to be sticking with the rough weather at the moment, headed east.  We're about 30 miles north of the ice shelf, and equidistant to Australia and Africa.  The days are certainly shorter than they were when we first got down here a couple of months ago.  At the end of December, the darkest it got was a few hours of twilight.  Now, there's over eight hours of darkness.  The rough seas and darkness make it really hard to see growlers - the smaller pieces of ice that have broken off from the icebergs.  They blend into the white-capped ocean and are quite dangerous because they can do a lot of damage to a ship.  So now we're keeping a deck person on night bridge watch to help look for the growlers.  I have the 4-8am tonight.

An update on the current Antarctic campaign, from Sea Shepherd crew member Andrea Gordon.

This message was transmitted to New York from the Bob Barker vessel via satellite.


Hey Tod!  I just watched the video of Pete Bethune entering the Shonan Maru #2. Very bold!  Boarding was the one thing he could do so that the Shonan wouldn't get away with the attempted murder of him and his crew.  He originally wanted to board when the New Zealand and Australian governments didn't do anything after the Shonan sunk the Ady Gil.  Pete went for one daylight boarding attempt from our small boat, but it was too dangerous in the small boat with the anti-boarding spikes.  But he's one intensely determined guy. He stayed on the Bob Barker until we met up with the Steve Irwin.  Then he went all the way back to Australia, only to leave the safety of home, his wife and kids, to come back to the Southern Ocean and do a dangerous nighttime boarding of the Shonan.

It was definitely dangerous.  He went on a jet ski with two other people - a driver and a camera person.  Then he had to balance on the jet ski, avoid the spikes, and cut the anti-boarding net - all in the dark at 14 knots! That's pretty fast.  Unfortunately, there's no video of the actual boarding. There was a camera person on the jet ski, but apparently it was too hard to get the shot in the dark while staying on the jet ski.

An update on the current Antarctic campaign, from Sea Shepherd crew member Andrea Gordon.

This message was transmitted to New York from the Bob Barker vessel via satellite.


HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!

We had a spectacular Valentine's Day down here in the Southern Ocean.  The whales got love of love and the whalers got a new paint job, butyric acid!

This morning, the Steve Irwin sent their Delta boat after the Nisshin Maru.  Using a potato launcher and some very good driving, they dodged the NM's water cannons and shot butyric acid right onto the slipway and flensing deck of the death ship.  We could smell the stench all the way on the Bob Barker!

An update on the current Antarctic campaign, from Sea Shepherd crew member Andrea Gordon.

This message was transmitted to New York from the Bob Barker vessel via satellite.


On the Bob Barker, right now it's Feb 11th and 1:26am.  I'm waiting for my 2am shift to start and just still so super happy that the whalers are still running -  five days and counting! Yesterday, we chased them north out of the JARPA 2 zone.  It's their self-appointed kill zone starting at 60 degrees latitude South.  In order to give them a proper Sea Shepherd send off, the Steve Irwin circled the Nisshin and hosed them down with their water cannon.