Tag Archives: save the whales

Endangered blue whales killed by commercial ship strikes

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Blue whale swims underwater.

Today’s whales are in need of protection from more than the few remaining countries that continue the barbaric and unnecessary practice of industrial whaling. Today there is a 21st century sized danger – ship strikes – that threatens the survival of endangered whale species like the iconic blue whale, our planet’s largest mammal.  With populations that are just now beginning to rebound from the slaughter in earlier centuries, blue whales need our protection now to ensure their survival. Continue reading →

Thank you times two million!

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Thanks for the 2 million signatures for Saving the Arctic.

When you’re as far north as we are right now, communications come to you like telegrams; they’re few and far between, and only the most important make it through. So when Steve, the radio operator on board the Arctic Sunrise, hand-delivered me a message today, I knew it was going to be good. “Two million people have now signed the petition to protect the Arctic!” Continue reading →

Another taxpayer lifeline for Japan’s dying whaling industry?

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I woke up this morning to reports that the Fisheries Agency of Japan, the body in charge of our whaling industry is seeking government funds to repair and re-fit the Nisshin Maru, the main factory processing vessel of the whaling fleet and make it more energy efficient.  My country’s pointless Antarctic programme cannot take place without the Nisshin Maru. Continue reading →

South Korea’s Whale Tales

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Really, South Korea?

A South Korean official at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) just stated that growing whale populations are eating up their fish stocks. This strangely implies that humans, who do not live in the sea, have a greater right to fish than a mammal that actually lives in the sea.

Last time I checked, whales could not get onto land and go hunting for food to eat or grow their own farms for that matter.

Continue reading →

Opposition rising to fading whaling industry

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by Junichi Sato, Executive Director of Greenpeace Japan

Whale conservation has lost out to the fading, but still defiant pro-whaling forces, at this year’s International Whaling Commission (IWC) annual meeting.

The meeting in Panama City had initially offered the world hope that the IWC would actually help to save whales, not whalers, after the Latin American nations proposed the creation of a whale sanctuary in the southern Atlantic. Continue reading →

Whales all over Panama City

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Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaigner Phil Kline with one of the many whale billboards around the city.

I’m happy to say there are whales everywhere in Panama City! In preparation for the IWC meeting, Greenpeace teamed up with NOAA and local NGOs to place billboards of whales everywhere. You can’t miss these billboards right now — everywhere you turn you see one. Continue reading →

From Alaska to Panama, whales need saving more than ever

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HUMPBACK WHALES IN ALASKA

Humpback whale feeding amongst a colony of seabirds, seen from onboard the Esperanza in the Unimak Pass, Alaska. Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac

The crew of the Esperanza scrambled to grab cameras and binoculars this morning to get a glimpse of so many humpback whales, maybe 40 of them blowing and diving by us, as we made our way through Unimak Pass crossing from the Gulf of Alaska into the Bering Sea.

Serendipitously, as we snapped pictures of these majestic giants swimming through water peppered with hundreds of seabird’s scouting for leftovers, an took in the rich and peaceful sounds of their massive exhaling blows, other Greenpeace activists in Panama at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) were trying to end to whaling, for good.

Between climate change, the industrialization of our seas and continued whaling, whales need saving today more than ever. Continue reading →

It’s a whale fiesta!

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Whale Fiesta Panama City, Panama

Local Activists hold banner saying "Sanctuary Now!" in Spanish, before International Whaling Commission meetings begin next week. Greenpeace is asking for a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic.

Today, in a town called the City of Knowledge within Panama City, we had a whale fiesta. Locals came out from all over to join us in asking the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic. Continue reading →

Incoming storms at Panama whales meeting

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Blue Whale Flukeby John Frizell, Greenpeace International

The weather here in Panama City changes from bright sun to pouring rain without warning. It may be an omen for the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting which will start in a few days.

Every five years the IWC considers the issue of the so-called ‘aboriginal subsistence’ quotas for indigenous people whose whale hunts often go back hundreds or even thousands of years. This year’s IWC meeting will include these discussions.. Greenpeace has never campaigned against these quotas since it is industrialized commercial whaling which has wiped out populations of whales, not indigenous hunts, but these hunts have become a political tool for those who seek to resume commercial whaling, a chance to embarrass countries like the US which strongly opposes commercial whaling but also has a large indigenous hunt.

There is lots of potential here at the Panama IWC for stormy weather. Continue reading →