Environmental crusader Jeff Hansen has an appreciative eye for all creatures from orcas to bugs. "We only need to look out our window to see all the incredible and somewhat impossible feats of nature every day - from spiders and their webs to dragonflies," says the 41-year-old with a background in engineering.
Spider silk remains the strongest substance known to man, he says, and NASA is still studying the mechanics of dragonfly wings, which are unchanged for the past 150 million years, according to Hansen, who runs the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's Australian wing.
At his Perth base, keen to prevent his nine-strong team from becoming a bureaucracy, he treats every member as their own boss, "so they can show initiative to get on with the job and can get things and get the job done", he says.
"That's my leadership managing style, I guess you could say: I don't necessarily tell people on the team what to do - I always ask them and show lots of appreciation and respect," he says, soft-spoken despite his direct-action stance against whalers.
In hot pursuit across Antarctica, he has faced threats including flash-bang concussion grenades - things get "quite hairy", he says, adding that he knows he is putting his life on the line. He accepts the risk because, ultimately, he says, he is protecting the oceans, which he describes as our life-support systems.
The son of a history-buff mechanic and a seamstress, Hansen is descended from convicts, native Australians, and war heroes including the Second World War ace Teddy Sheean, who died aboard a sinking ship, blazing away at Hansen's modern opposition, the Japanese.
Hansen grew up in the wilds of West Heidelberg, Victoria. His mother supported his passion for the wild guests he hosted, including pythons and bearded-dragons hatched from his incubator. Reptiles were the closest available stand-in for dinosaurs, he says, adding that he dreamed of becoming a wildlife veterinarian tending elephants on the African plains.
Instead, "for all the wrong reasons", he did a double degree in electronic engineering and computer science then entered IT but sorely rued his split from "the grandest show on earth": nature.
The following year, moved by inspirational Sea Shepherd footage, Hansen joined the self-styled "disciplined pirates" who fly the Jolly Roger, as a ground support volunteer. He served aboard the Steve Irwin flagship during the 2007-2008 campaign, Operation Migaloo, as a bridge-based quartermaster. On the voyage, he made a strategic call that exposed that reviled whaling fleet centrepiece: the Nisshin Maru factory vessel.
On Hansen's return, Sea Shepherd supremo Captain Paul Watson promoted the ex-systems analyst. According to Hansen, who works a 50-hour-plus week and earns a $75,000-plus wage, his professional, technical training tells - it means he can "transition" beyond the frontline - bridge the gap with the corporate sector like "glue".
His biggest challenge is sustaining work-life balance, as a father with two kids and a sideline nurturing bobtail lizards. "You want at times to save everything and do everything," he says.
The former chronic fatigue sufferer has had to learn to prioritise and make tremendous dietary changes: no more gluten, dairy, or preservatives. Lots of exercise - he runs to work and does ironman triathlons.
The disciplinarian's dream is that one day the non-profit he helms will no longer be needed. For him, the very idea of environmentalism makes no sense: if we want clean air and water for our kids - and their kids, and their kids - the word should not even exist. "It just should be something that's part of our DNA: part of our make-up."
