Actor Martin Sheen launches vessel to join Sea Shepherd oceans campaign
Ocean research vessel launched as group's leader makes plans for his return to the US
Award-winning actor Martin Sheen has teamed up with conservation group Sea Shepherd to launch a ship as its exiled founder said he hoped to return to the US next year.
Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson said via Skype that he hoped to return from France, where he said the government was being supportive despite two countries including Japan seeking his arrest.
"Hopefully we'll have all of this cleared up by next spring and I can return" to the United States, he said. Sea Shepherd said last month that it would switch its high-profile Southern Ocean campaign from whales to Patagonian toothfish if Japan cancelled this year's hunt in Antarctica.
Meanwhile the captain of the new boat, the Martin Sheen, cracked a bottle over the side of the research vessel, which will focus on battling maritime litter such as plastics in the world's oceans.
"Plastic has become the deadliest predator of the sea," Sheen , the Golden Globe and Emmy-winning and actor, told a crowd at the boat-christening ceremony near Los Angeles.
"If we fail to clean up the plastic mess that humans have made and stop the pollution ... we face the potential extinction of many species of sea life."
