Travel writer, journalist and author of Blood and Guts: Dispatches from the Whale Wars, Sam Vincent takes an objective eyewitness look at the whale wars.

What motivates the war against whaling in the Southern Ocean – for both sides? Why does Sea Shepherd spend vast sums of money and risk activists’ lives to pursue a relatively low-impact hunt in isolated and perilous waters? Why does a rich nation like Japan doggedly continue a practice it started to feed its starving population during World War II?