Volunteer With Sea Shepherd Australia

Volunteers Needed!

Following is a list of the type of help we will need in your area, but please let us know if you have any specific ideas on how you can help. E-mail: australia@seashepherd.org

• Fundraising - Organise a fundraiser event or concert at your local pub, restaurant, or community meeting place; have a Sea Shepherd house party (show videos and give a presentation); help sell SSCS merchandise; tell your friends about our work! 
• Outreach - Assist in manning an information table (or host your own) at special events, festivals, outdoor markets, and/or shopping malls in your area. Be creative! Think of any place where you can set-up a display table and hand out information.
• Education - Visit schools, universities, clubs, and/or organizations to give presentations on Sea Shepherd.
• Information Distribution - You can help spread the word about our mission by distributing printed brochures, info sheets, and newsletters.
• Administrative and clerical work to support the chapter's activities - You can help with telephone calls, answering mail, data entry, computer consultation, and translation work.
• Ship Support - Finding contacts in Melbourne for when the ship comes in, to provide services, parts, equipment, moorage, etc.
• Developing a support network for Sea Shepherd in Australia

Read about one on-shore volunteer's story here...

"How can you answer a child who asks ‘why do people kill whales?’ My difficult response to the many children that asked me this question, that a few people can make money from it, was essentially bewildering: one little girl contemplated so thoughtfully the coins she held in her hand before placing them in the donation tin as if to say ‘how could you do all that for this that’s in my hand?’

On Sunday 21^st February 2010, I joined volunteers in Fremantle to raise money for current Sea Shepherd campaigns. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for some time now, angered and frustrated by the repeated news of Australia’s failure to act definitively against the illegal poaching of whales in Antarctica. For me it really did boil down to the confronting maxim that ‘evil triumphs when good people do nothing.’

I arrived at the fruit market, spotted the Jolly Roger flag flapping in the Fremantle wind, and was welcomed instantly at the Sea Shepherd stall. Sent off with a donation tin to collect money, I expected to meet some resistance, to engage in debate with some and at very least raise awareness with others. I was so wrong.

Rather than argue or ignore us, so many people clearly expressed their outrage over the issue of whaling, and gratitude – almost relief - that we were collecting, for a group like the Sea Shepherd that was ‘out there doing something’ on their behalf. Some said ‘I don’t normally support things like this, but what they’re doing is just wrong’, placing more money in our tins. Having felt like passive bystanders, on the very day that Japanese Foreign Minister Okada was to arrive, some Perth residents could finally, through whatever sum – from $100 to the last 50c in their pockets - make a difference. Perhaps even more poignant was that many Japanese visitors donated to us – contrary to reports of Japanese public support for whaling in international newscasts.

I realised that the absurdity is that poaching of whales continues, despite the fact that firstly it is illegal under Australian law (as they are poaching in the Australian Antarctic Economic Exclusion Zone) and international law (as outlined by the IWC convention) and that the Australian public and our visitors want it stopped immediately. It is clearly no longer a contentious issue.

I felt blessed to have been able to engage in a dialogue with people about what is important to us. I witnessed something different than the nagging impressions of public apathy conveyed in the nation’s opinion pieces. People want the poaching of whales prevented and policed, just as any other criminal act would be, and for this reason show support for the remarkable tenacity of the Sea Shepherd, who risk so much to enforce laws where our government has failed to do so."

Perth Sea Shepherd Volunteer, Cybele