Peter Hammarstedt
Swedish-American Peter Hammarstedt is the captain of Sea Shepherd’s ship the Bob Barker, Sea Shepherd’s Director of Campaigns and Chairman of Sea Shepherd Australia.
Peter joined Sea Shepherd, the marine conservation organisation, at the age of 18 and since then has worked his way up the ranks from deckhand to a captain feared by marine poachers across the oceans. Among Peter’s accomplishments as captain, one of the most notorious is setting the world record for the longest pursuit of a poaching vessel at sea. During 2014-2015, Peter captained the Bob Barker as it chased the poaching vessel, the Thunder, for 110 days. In the end, the captain of the Thunder intentionally sank his own vessel in the Gulf of Guinea in a bid to destroy evidence. The whole campaign was documented in the 2018 film, Ocean Warriors: Chasing the Thunder. Peter also starred in Whale Wars, a documentary series following Sea Shepherd that ran for six seasons on Animal Planet.
As well as his role as captain, Peter has also worked with various governments and conservation bodies to protect the oceans. In 2016, he “signed a historic accord with the government of Gabon, resulting in a partnership where Sea Shepherd Global worked together with the Gabonese Navy and the Gabonese Fisheries Enforcement Agency to patrol Gabon’s sovereign waters to stop illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing” and was the recipient of the 2016 Winsome Constance Kindness Gold Medal for Humanitarian Service, previously awarded to the likes of Dr Jane Goodall and Captain Paul Watson, among others.
Peter has been vegan for over 20 years, and was vegetarian before that. He told New Roots:
“I became vegan because I believe that all living creatures have an innate well-being interest, meaning that any animal, when faced with a risk to their life, consciously chooses life over death. It is unfathomable to me that any living creature should have to go through unimaginable horrors in order for me to have a 15-minute meal.”
