The Whale Defense Agency, 2108 N Street STE # 8616, Sacramento, CA (2026)

04/15/2026

THE RADAR USED IN THE WHALE ACTIVE PROTECTION SYSTEM

For decades, the conservation movement has fought whaling on the deck of the ship, in the courts, and on the open water, and each time, it has failed to deliver the results we truly want in our hearts - the complete end of whaling. But the moment of greatest vulnerability, and, as it turns out, the moment of greatest opportunity, has always been the split-second after the trigger is pulled by the whaling fleet, a moment in time they have no control over. It sounds counter productive, but...it's the best chance to save a whale.

Today, The Whale Defense Agency is unveiling a paradigm shift in marine defense for all cetaceans, the world's first Whale Active Protection System (WAPS).

While traditional activism focuses on locating the whaling vessel and engaging it, WAPS focuses on locating the inbound threat, positioning nearby, and it can do so from over 20km away. Whaling is only successful when the harpoon finds its mark, when it hits the whale, when it becomes a dollar sign to the whaling fleet. We have engineered a system to ensure it never does.

WAPS employs a hardened, radar array specifically calibrated to distinguish a high-velocity explosive harpoon from sea spray, seabirds and ocean surface effects. The moment an inbound harpoon crosses the detection threshold, the system enters a millisecond timeline.

The radar locks the projectile's trajectory with fire-control precision (as shown in a prior video). An onboard ballistic computer predicts the exact flight path apex and tracks with IPCPT markers, known as the Inbound Projectile Calculated Point of Terminal Impact. The system deploys a directed, non-explosive kinetic munition into that flight path to obliterate the harpoon and knock it off course.

There is no detonation near the whale or any crew. There is no shrapnel. The harpoon, a finely tuned ballistic instrument, encounters an immovable, precisely placed wall of force mid-air. It is deflected, destabilized, and rendered inert before it can pierce the water's surface or a whales skin.

We are demonstrating a capability, especially as it evolves. Alongside this announcement, we are releasing video, the first public footage of the WAPS radar tracking system in live operation.

We want to be exceedingly clear about the nature of this technology. WAPS is a defensive shield, like that of water cannons, not an offensive weapon. It does not target the vessel. It does not target the crew. It targets the harpoon far enough from the whalers bow, but fast enough to intercept the harpoon.

We are drawing a technological red line in the water. We are communicating, in the language of radar and ballistics, that the cost of firing a harpoon is now a 100% guaranteed miss, and no matter what, defeating it will be almost entirely impossible.

It's millisecond response time doesn't give much engineering room to counter it, which means every harpoon, every time, will miss its target. A faster projectile or a low radar cross section harpoon will still be detected and destroyed, as the radar can detect objects with a radar cross section of 0.5 RCS, so even a stealth harpoon would be tracked, and has been pre-defeated through engineering.

We are sharing this information proactively because the whaling industry operates on the assumption of a clear shot. We want them to know that assumption is no longer valid anymore, as the technology is here, and you can even see it for yourself as we continue to refine, test and then eventually deploy it against active operations.

The era of the uncontested harpoon is over. This highly special radar is about to make whaling a threat of the past. We are in business to put whaling out of business so we can put ourselves out of business.

The whalers might be confused when they see 4 small boats arrive each with a radar array like this on the bow, wondering why they are not being prop fouled anymore, and instead we are just acting as a shield, feeding sensor data to platforms downrange for the millisecond intercept needed.

The whalers want to make "direct action" harder, well we just made whaling impossible, so eat your own reality whalers. We are masters in turning the whalers tactics against them, in ways they would never imagine, and we quite enjoy it too.

We know Japan's whalers and their defense pact are not ready for this. If they go after Paul for just ropes in the water and a boarding, then WAPS is going to illicit a very different kind of response, however it's been carefully engineered to be completely legal within the US. It's far more powerful than boarding a ship because it means every harpoon will fail.

That's fine. We can just show up at a distance and knock every harpoon out of the sky. We have options. A range of options. Some not disclosed but just as capable.

We keep the whalers up at night. This is why.

We're not here to chase the whalers in rhibs every year without this level of technology built first. We want progress by leaps and bounds. Technology that will make whaling impossible. We're not here to duplicate any other NGO, we want whaling to stop when we arrive, and this technology, and time spent engineering such technology FIRST, is what will make a difference in the long term when we confront the fleet at sea.

We will confront them, as we have done with Nordic whalers before (saving two minke whales) from a harpoon strike during an active pursuit at sea. We also boarded the whaling vessels and documented the computers data and other log info, at one point finding a whale that took approx 333 minutes to die once struck by the harpoon (this is with log data we recorded on video, which can be proven).

After seeing that time it took for one whale to die, we decided WAPS must be built, at all costs. To p**s us off is to engineer your demise, simply.

Try to catch our prop foulers with hooks, we'll just throw parachutes on the end to increase your ships drag by several tons within seconds. This isn't your 80's activism, this is former military officers, civilians, and engineering people meets a whaling crew that knows nothing about engineering, code, ballistics, weaknesses, physics, or even WDA for that matter.

03/30/2026

WDA Update On Technology That Makes Harpoon Whaling Obsolete

The Whale Active Protection System (WAPS) intercepts an explosive harpoon in the fraction of a second between launch and impact — before any human eye has time to register what happened.

We Said We Would. Here is Video.

Over a year ago, the Whale Defense Agency told the world we were developing technology to defeat whaling ships' harpoons in mid-flight. We weren't speaking in metaphors. We were describing something we were already building.

Today, that system is real.

We build our own technology because we have to. Whaling interests have spent years working to disrupt the equipment contracts and procurement channels of anti-whaling organisations. When you develop in-house, you own it completely — the design, the code, the hardware, the supply chain, all of it. They can send whatever emails they like to us. We can ignore them and, if anything, accelerate. That is exactly what we did.

WAPS — the Whale Active Protection System — is a defensive system mounted aboard WDA vessels, much in the same way an LRAD would be. Its sole purpose is to physically destroy an inbound explosive harpoon before it can reach a whale.

The theory goes. If we can intercept the harpoon mid-flight, we can end whaling. There is no need to block a slipway, no need to put crew between a cannon and its target. We block the harpoon at a standoff distance from their ship.

The system is fully autonomous. It does not wait for a crew member to see the harpoon, recognise it as a threat, and press a button. By the time any of that could even happen, the engagement is already over. WAPS detects, classifies, and neutralises in under 300 milliseconds — roughly three times faster than a human blink.

Watching a WAPS intercept on video via our mission control dashboard, you have almost no time to see what happens, it's just as fast on screen as it would be in real life. A harpoon launches. In milliseconds it is detected. A counter-projectile fires to destroy it mid-flight. It is over before the eye fully processes that anything happened at all.

At the core of WAPS will be a $450,000 AESA radar installation on board a WDA test bed platform — four independent radar panels, one covering each side of the vessel. This provides complete 360° detection with no blind spots. Paired with this are electro-optical and infrared camera arrays that provide visual confirmation at up to 80 metres and beyond. The entire sensor suite updates 100 times per second.

Kinetic interceptor launchers are mounted at four positions: port, starboard, bow, and stern, near quick reload access doors. Wherever a harpoon comes from, regardless of the angle of attack, 45 degrees or the direction of approach, there is a launcher facing it. A whaling vessel cannot reposition to find a gap in coverage.

There is no gap.

Imagine a whaling vessel underway at 19 knots, chasing a whale in open ocean. A WDA high-speed vessel moves alongside. WAPS is operational. The whalers — having chosen not to believe the technology is real — decide to fire.

In milliseconds, the harpoon is detected and destroyed before it can ever reach a whale. The whale swims on, not on a dinner plate, but in the sea where it belongs. That is the reality of this system. That is who we are and what we do. The whalers do not need to cooperate.

They do not need to know the system is active. They simply fire — and the harpoon fails to arrive. Every time.

The full intercept sequence occurs in under 300 milliseconds.

Detection (0–25 ms): The moment a harpoon leaves the cannon, one of the four AESA radar panels picks it up instantly, simultaneously confirmed by the EO/IR camera array. At 90–100 metres per second, a harpoon is fast — but sensors updating 100 times per second are faster.

Sensor Fusion (25–45 ms): Data from both sensors is merged into a single high-confidence 3D track — exact position, velocity, and direction — using a Kalman filter and deep neural network running on hardened onboard hardware.

AI Threat Classification (45–95 ms): An onboard AI classifier determines whether the tracked object is a genuine harpoon or a false return. It will not authorise any action below 95% confidence. A seabird, spray, or debris does not trigger a response. A harpoon does.

Trajectory Solving (95–170 ms): A ballistic physics solver calculates the harpoon's full flight path — gravity, drag, wind, vessel movement — and identifies the precise point in space and time at which a counter-projectile must arrive to intercept it.

Kinetic Intercept (170–300 ms): The nearest launcher fires a high-velocity, counter-projectile at the calculated intercept point. It strikes the harpoon in flight at a safe standoff distance of 10–40 metres from the harpooner. The harpoon does not continue on it's path, at this point, the harpoon would be destroyed.

Commercial whaling at sea is an economic operation. It requires successful kills to generate revenue. When harpoons are reliably intercepted before reaching their targets, the hunt becomes commercially non-viable. No kill. No whale to process. No return on the voyage. 0%.

WAPS does not need to intercept every harpoon fired anywhere in the world. It needs to be present and operational on the vessels where WDA is deployed. Each successful intercept is a whale that lives. Each empty return to port increases the financial pressure on the whaling operation. Over time, the calculation changes. Traditional harpoon-based whaling, in the presence of a WAPS-equipped vessel, simply stops working.

This is not hype. This is physics, software, and engineering applied to the single point of failure in the whaling process — the moment the harpoon is in the air. We can disrupt this "kill chain" by deploying WAPS.

WAPS was designed from the outset to be legally deployable in international waters and verifiable by independent authorities. The counter-projectile carries no explosive charge and is legally analogous to high-pressure water cannons and automated bird-strike mitigation systems already carried aboard commercial vessels.

The AI will not fire below 80-95% classifier confidence. A human crew override is available at all times. Every sensor reading, AI decision, and system action is recorded in a cryptographically sealed, timestamped log that cannot be altered.

The system contains no explosives and no military-classified components, is built from available technology today and is legally declarable under standard SOLAS/ISM maritime safety filings in US, EU, UK, Australian, Canadian, and most NATO-aligned ports.

Our mission is to stop whaling. We develop our own technology for exactly this reason. If no one will give us what we need, we build it ourselves.

Video: Real world test data collected from a live fire event off the coast of Japan. No interceptor was launched, deployed or active. Mission was data collection only, seeing if the radars and sensors alone could detect, track and classify the harpoon while flying through the air. We then simulated a countermeasure "launch" automatically against that real threat, which had the system been active with a launcher and interceptor, would have defeated the harpoon mid-flight.

03/30/2026

Following years of research, development, and field preparation conducted under operational security, WDA is disclosing a key technical advancement in the deployment of non-propeller fouling systems against commercial whaling fleets.

Confirmed: Japanese Fleet Hook Countermeasures

Intelligence gathered from direct engagements over the years by prior anti-whaling groups has confirmed that Japanese whaling vessels have employed grappling hooks as a defensive countermeasure against line-based prop foulers — including deployment of hooks from underway vessels to intercept and remove lines as they are laid. The NGO deploying lines faced increased moral dips.

WDA Counter-Solution: Parachute-Augmented Fouling Systems

WDA has developed a direct technical response to this tactic. Large sea parachutes are attached to each end of the fouling line prior to deployment. This modification fundamentally reverses the effectiveness of the hook countermeasure:

If hooks engage and capture the line, the parachutes immediately generate substantial hydrodynamic drag — over several tons of additional resistance per parachute — sharply reducing vessel speed. Each line captured, increases drag.

Every grappling hook represents an additional point of contact, increasing the system's capture area and drag-generating potential rather than neutralizing it.

The whaling fleet's own defensive infrastructure is thereby converted by WDA into a liability, with their countermeasure compounding the effectiveness of our deployments, in all domains.

Strategic Development

WDA has deliberately developed this and other capabilities under strict operational security. The strategic advantage lies not only in the technical solutions themselves. Whaling fleets have previously encountered WDA in Norwegian waters; they have not yet encountered what WDA has since developed.

Japan's whaling fleet would be unprepared for the level of technology, and no SSCS engagement protocol they have would work, nothing that they have built over the decades, would work. Nothing could properly classify WDA's approach, let alone how to handle it. Everything they have built up, as a defense, has been systematically destroyed by design, through engineering.

We've defeated over 90% of the threats SSCS faced during their active years against Japan's whaling fleet. We've studied them, and even think how they would defend their fleet, enabling us to develop countermeasures.

We are so far ahead, that we have countermeasures for a form of whaling that doesn't even exist yet, what we refer to as Chemical Based Whaling (CBW) (where the whalers, desperate due to WDA actions, resort to chemical based methods of whaling) by incapacitating whales for capture, to reduce detection by WDA sensors, for example.

We understand that our tech will anger the whalers, and they will seek to develop new ways around everything we do. We plan to make harpoon whaling obsolete. That's why we have this backup plan in place to defeat "secondary" methods of hunting, after they lose their sole method. These are precautions only.

03/26/2026

Why We Are Building an Un-Capturable Organization

The history of marine conservation is littered with once-fierce groups that were slowly tamed — not by the whalers or poachers on the water, but by comfortable boardrooms, donor pressures, or legal and organizational vulnerabilities that led to mission drift.

We refuse to let that happen to the Whale Defense Agency.
That is why our foundational Bylaws already contain some of the strongest mission-protection mechanisms in the nonprofit world: an unamendable Core Mission Statement, irremovable Tier 1 Founding Directors with veto rights, strict donor concentration limits, Red Flag early-warning systems, and Sole Member oversight that cannot be bypassed.

We are now taking the next logical step: implementing a multi-layered structural fortress that physically and legally separates day-to-day campaign operations from the long-term stewardship of our most important assets.

In plain terms, this means the organization that sends crews to sea and confronts illegal activity will operate as a pure, agile “campaign engine” — lean, transparent, and relentlessly focused on direct action. Meanwhile, vessels, intellectual property, key reserves, and other critical resources are held in separate, mission-locked entities fully aligned with and controlled under the same unbreakable commitments.

This is not about hiding resources. It is about protecting them so they can never be diverted, seized in a lawsuit, or used as leverage to force compromises EVER AGAIN. It is standard, responsible practice among true high-impact, high-liability nonprofits and directly supports the “irrevocable dedication to charitable purposes” required by California law.

You will see this reflected in:

1. Our Annual Public Report and Governance Health Audit
2. Transparent disclosure of related organizations on our IRS Form 990
3. Continued rigorous internal and independent auditing across the entire structure

The result? A Whale Defense Agency that remains fearless on the water — decade after decade — because the infrastructure that enables that fearlessness is deliberately shielded from the very pressures that have neutered other organizations, and at the same time, neutered anti-whaling.

Think of it like a firewall for our NGO. It's like signing up for Cloudflare, but for our NGO's long term mission safety and focus. Even if a bad actor gets in the board room, his options are impossible to surmount, and they will rapidly hit into firewalls by design. Their removal can be swift after detection. The system we've built is designed to out them very quickly and efficiently.

The oceans are not negotiable.
Our mission is not negotiable.

And now, the structure that sustains both is built to last. Built to resist insider threats just as much as outsider threats. The bylaws have been accepted and are in force now. These bylaws will not be published, but out of transparency, we wanted to make this statement.

01/19/2026

Whale Defense Agency Takes Legal Action Against Japanese Whaling Fleet's Digital Intelligence Operations

Historic Legal Notice Invokes Federal Computer Fraud Laws to Protect Operational Data from Commercial Exploitation

SACRAMENTO, CA – January 18, 2026 – The Whale Defense Agency (WDA) announced today that it has issued formal legal notice to Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd., the Japanese commercial whaling company, the notice, prohibits access to WDA's digital systems and use of WDA operational intelligence under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030).

The notice, delivered on January 17, 2026, establishes that WDA's operational data — including vessel positions, tactical intelligence, and mission information published on whaledefenseagency.org — is protected proprietary information subject to strict licensing and access restrictions. The data may not be used in any manner that supports, facilitates, or benefits whaling operations.

"After decades of harassment by whalers against the anti-whaling movement, existing court action by the whalers against other similar NGO's, we are applying a different method of deterrence in the online domain," said a WDA spokesperson. "Our operational intelligence, the data they collect from our website, is not public property — it is protected data that cannot be exploited for commercial gain by those profiting from whale slaughter."

Legal Framework Making Unauthorized Access Toxic

Under the formal notice, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd. and its entire support network — including government agencies, paid contractors, third-party intelligence services, and individual supporters selling, transferring or providing "services" — are permanently prohibited from accessing whaledefenseagency.org or any WDA digital systems, collecting vessel positions, operational intelligence, or tactical information from WDA sources or using WDA information to tail, harass, or interfere with anti-whaling operations at sea, should they encounter the 60 Knot Anti-Poaching Vessel, known as the APV.

Any knowing and intentional access after receipt of this notice by anyone who is stated in the notice, constitutes a violation of federal law, exposing violators to civil damages, injunctive relief, and potential criminal prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

"This makes it legally toxic for them to even visit our website," the WDA spokesperson continued. "If a whaling company accesses our site to obtain a ship position we've published — even in a press release — they are committing federal computer crimes with documented notice. The lawsuit they would receive is designed to do exactly what it's intended to do, DETER and then restrict through injunctions if required."

Targeting the Whaling Support Network

In addition to the Japanese whaling fleet, WDA's legal team is issuing similar prohibition notices to individuals who have supported whaling operations through misinformation campaigns and data exploitation.

"Propagandabuster," a pro-whaling propagandist known for screenshotting conservation data and transferring it to support whaling interests while monetizing anti-conservation content, will receive formal legal notice banning access to all WDA systems. His commercial operations — including YouTube monetization and branded merchandise sales—make him liable for willful copyright infringement and commercial exploitation of protected data.

"Just because WDA is an NGO doesn't mean anyone is entitled to our data or can assume public access," WDA explained. "Our data is licensed and protected — no different than Global Fishing Watch restricting use of its vessel tracking data through terms of service. No one is above the law when it comes to protected information."

WDA has implemented specialized policies targeting government intelligence operations, particularly from whaling nations, that attempt to access WDA systems for state-sponsored intelligence collection.

"We have policies designed specifically for nation states that go into even greater depth," WDA stated. "Even the Japanese government cannot legally access our systems to support whaling operations. This makes our operational intelligence almost impossible to touch in every sense."

A Replicable Model for the Anti-Whaling Movement

WDA's legal strategy represents a scalable framework that other conservation organizations can adopt to protect their operational security and complicate intelligence-gathering by whaling fleets worldwide.

"This model serves to be replicated by other anti-whaling groups who wish to erode the intelligence capabilities of whaling fleets," WDA emphasized. "By putting whaling companies and their support networks at legal risk through an intelligent, scalable approach, we target the data they would otherwise use for commercial gain and operational advantage, and laws exist to prevent this use and exploitation."

"While nothing physically stops someone from visiting our website, the lawsuit they would receive makes it legally and financially catastrophic to do so," a WDA spokesperson said. "This is deterrence through legal consequence — and it changes the game entirely. It's never been done before against the whalers, they will have new challenges to contend with, and the biggest is a loss of intelligence data."

Complementing At-Sea Operations

This legal strategy now operates in parallel with WDA's direct action at sea and covert operations, creating a multi-domain approach to whale protection.

"We're fighting in every domain — at sea, in the courts, and in the digital space," the spokesperson said.

"The whalers can no longer operate with impunity in any arena, as we will challenge it at levels that are far more aggressive than what they witnessed with Sea Shepherd or Paul Watson. If they complained about Sea Shepherd so bad, they are not prepared for what's being done in secret to stun them at every angle. We will stop whaling full stop, through all domain awareness and control, at civilian levels, using former military to achieve mission objectives for the agency."

Media Contact:
Whale Defense Agency
Legal & Communications Division
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (707) 706-9501
Internal Case Reference: WDA-2026-001-Kyodo
Legal Notice Issued: January 17, 2026
Public Release: January 18, 2026

Since the WDA website is upgrading to become part of a command node, where anyone in the world can report a whaling vessel coordinate, ship photo, etc and that will automatically be cued into a live drone waiting for takeoff only once verified intelligence comes in, and the data provided on the upcoming site, although engineered to be less informative to the whalers, still contains important info, we may post a ship position, or other info, shown or likely displayed, with major value of operational importance to the whaling fleet.

To restrict their access, we've created various policies and filed and sent such notices (below). As part of our organization enhancement, everything you "knew" about WDA is about to change in major ways. This new method, is one of many, major upcoming plans to be announced over the coming years and months.

And our final note, if you are a whaler reading this, be prepared to not be allowed to again. We're engineering something else that you will dislike for "social channels", and we're entirely moving away from non-self hosted or maintained infrastructure that the whalers can use or weaponize against the agency.

Facebook, twitter, linkedin, all of these will be deleted or removed in the coming months and years, or not active, or rarely used. We are still evaluating how exactly this process will occur, but the change will happen. Everything will be replaced with in house built systems, so we can control every aspect of the domain we operate in, including the information domain and the terms of service. Everything we share or post about, will in the future, only be published via WDA networks or sites, to enable this policy to be the most effective.

A Facebook term or privacy policy does not cover WDA operations, as such, this platform is no longer secure for WDA operations. We've gone silent, rather than publish, and we work on internal systems to replace social networks and more by creating a WDA social network where we can control, monitor, restrict, moderate and enhance the experience for users, where needed. If anti-whalers are being harassed in our own network, we can deploy code within two hours that would crush pro whaling trolls.

Saving whales is not a dream, it's an engineering challenge, and we understand engineering, from coding, to ships development, to policy and legal, we own the anti-whaling domain through intelligent, scalable approaches and novel concepts that in effect, provide a "shock and awe" approach on a often continued, rotational basis as new methods, capabilities or approaches come online.

Controlling the online domain means we control the whalers actions at sea. If they can't monitor our website for intel, they can't effectively chase us down.

While online work does not provide the tv drama of previous organizations, the effect of deterrence with such notices and policies is actually very incredible, from a legal standpoint, the whalers can never access the WDA website again. The data is now "licensed", it can't be used for commercial or private gain from parties who support whaling.

08/10/2025

The even harvest rocks. We mean everything from the sea, they'll harvest it any chance they have.

08/10/2025

The Kangei Maru has entered Antarctic waters. The world’s last sanctuary for whales is no longer safe. Unless we act, scenes like this will become reality.

www.whaledefenseagency.org
www.kangeimaru.org

06/12/2024

**BREAKING NEWS SUPPORTERS**

Visit the APV's Kickstarter PRE-LAUNCH and tell your FRIENDS and FAMILY to get ready if they want to support the most advanced anti-whaling VESSEL and HELP finish the design phase so we can begin construction.

We have estimated construction timelines for the APV by 2026, which you can view all of the details here once launched live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whaledefenseagency/fund-the-final-design-of-the-60-knot-anti-poaching-vessel

Early backers (up to #200) can gain exclusive access to live-streaming of the APV's construction, a reward typically reserved for those pledging $10,000 or more on kickstarter. Secure this limited-time offer during our Kickstarter pre-launch exclusively on our official website ONLY. This special perk, not available at the $50 tier on Kickstarter, provides a unique opportunity to witness the APV being built firsthand. Don't miss out on this chance to experience the construction process live – visit whaledefenseagency.org to donate and secure your spot today.

To get this reward, you must donate via our official website(s) during the kickstarter pre-launch at whaledefenseagency.org with a min amount of $50 you can see the rewards here that also come with the $50 tier: (https://antiwhalingship.org/whale-defense-agency-will-soon-launch-kickstarter-for-apv/).

Rewards from our official website are subject to the same shipping dates and more via kickstarter.

By donating now, you reserve a limited-time and limited access to the APV's construction livestream.

Donate Here For Early Rewards: https://whaledefenseagency.org/product/anti-poaching-vessel-apv/

Image: A thank you and symbolic certificate of ownership that will be given out to all supporters and reward levels.

The Whale Defense Agency

04/15/2026

03/30/2026

03/30/2026

03/26/2026

01/19/2026

08/10/2025

08/10/2025

06/12/2024

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Organization

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Category