For the latest news updates please go to the website for The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society www.wdcs.org

October 5, 2009

Documentary - The Cove
You may have been sent links or read about the news that the documentary The Cove is generating world wide:

http://www.thecovemovie.com/

Please take time to go to the official activist page associated with the makers of this documentary. There is a list of things you can do and there are online petitions you can sign:

http://savejapandolphins.org/

You can also have a look at their Japan based blog site:

http://savejapandolphins.blogspot.com/2009/04/dolphins-in-kyoto.html

This documentary is seriously going to put Japan in the spot light for its institutionalized cruelty and hypocrisy. With a new government there may be some impetus to change things and the more pressure there is the more it will impinge upon consciousness of ordinary Japanese people.

June 3, 2009 - email from CoreLight

What the Whales say - A message for All of Us

Beloved Friends,

We felt that it was important to share this message from Anna
Breytenbach with you ... perhaps we can all hold an intent for the
information to go out into the collective consciousness ... it feels
critical that people know what is going on with the ocean NOW, how this
is affecting the whales and what their actual intent was in the actions
they took. Included just below are links to two of the articles about
this event (in case you are unaware of it). Also included after Anna's
message, is a brief comment from Brad with links to two related crop
circles.

Love and blessings,

Leslie, Brad and Victoria


http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/pilot-whales-beach-near-cape-town-r
escuers-try-save-them


http://www.capetownalive.co.za/news/beached-whales-kommetjie-beach-in-ca
pe-town.html

________________________________

From: Anna Breytenbach [mailto:anna@animalspirit.org]

Dearest Friends,

I was deep in the Knysna forest tracking wild elephants when the whale tragedy at Kommetjie happened yesterday, so I rushed back to Cape Town today and have just finished a long afternoon/evening at the beach. This is a summary of what the pod of 55 whales conveyed to me after I connected with the group:

The majority of the whales were sick and dying... as a result of swimming in some sort of chemical effluent in the ocean, to the northwest of Cape waters. This invisible toxic stream affected them internally in such a way as to cause slow die-off. With that their immune systems also crashed, making them very susceptible to and ill from parasitic infections. A few of them were physically fine, having withstood this - but they weren't going to leave their family members. So they swam ashore with the dying ones. One for all.

They beached because they wanted to die.

They chose the Cape beach so as not to have to navigate the stormy, rough seas around Cape Point in their weakened state, and because they want humans to witness (the) whales' dying. On the bigger/planetary level too. They said "the Mother" (the ocean) is being poisoned, and so are they. It's time humans woke up to this and witnessed the effects.

They predicted that there will be more strandings in the next moon cycle (which I found interesting given that the International Whaling Commission sits again in the last week of June apparently.)

The whales appreciate the compassion and care that people showed in trying to return them to the water, but would have wished to be given
the choice, i.e. pointed out to sea/re-floated once, and then left to die in peace if and when they returned.

Humans holding vigil for them with understanding would have been far better than the forceful, violent means ultimately used.

Inbetween the above thought forms are the emotions and soulfulness of their consciousness that cannot be expressed in words by this mere
human...

With honour and reverence for all whales,

Anna B

________________________________________

Hi, all. These two most recent crop formations, which happened within
days of the whales beaching themselves, are haunting and are obviously
connected to the whales:

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2009/waylandsmithy/waylandsmithy2009.
html

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2009/milkhill/milkhill2009.html

First one is a giant jellyfish, and I just read an article the other day
about mass explosions of jellyfish populations in polluted and warmer
than normal ocean waters. Second one is obviously a tribute to our whale
friends. So beautiful.

Anna, thank you so much for sharing the poignant, heart-rending message.
Leslie and I are holding the whales and the oceans in our prayers.

All love, Brad

Japan whalers off to hunt humpbacks: expedition chief

18th November 2007
TOKYO (AFP) — Japan's whaling fleet set off Sunday towards the Antarctic Ocean for a hunt that will include famed humpback whales for the first time, defying Western protests that the move will inflame tensions.

Japan argues that whale populations have recovered enough to allow a managed catch, but militant environmentalists have vowed in turn to "hunt the whalers" to save the humpbacks. The six-vessel fleet took off from the western port of Shimonoseki for its five-month voyage led by the 8,044-tonne Nisshin Maru, which has been repaired since a fire that forced Japan to cut short its last Antarctic hunt.

"Although we are subjected to vicious blocking tactics by environmental groups, we have to continue this into the future," team leader Hajima Ishikawa told a departure ceremony, as quoted by Kyodo News.

The environmental movement Greenpeace said that its Esperanza ship is waiting outside Japanese coastal waters and will track the whalers in Antarctic waters, shooting video footage to show the public."The threatened humpbacks targeted by the whalers are part of thriving whale watching industries elsewhere," Greenpeace expedition leader Karli Thomas said in a statement issued aboard the Esperanza.
"The whaling fleet must be recalled now. If it is not, we will take direct, non-violent action to stop the hunt."

Japan kills more than 1,000 whales a year in the Antarctic and also the Pacific Ocean using a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium that allows catching whales for research. Only Norway and Iceland defy the moratorium outright. This year, Japan is expanding the catch to harpoon 50 humpback whales, which are celebrated for their complex songs and acrobatic displays. The expedition also plans to kill 50 fin whales -- the world's second largest animal after blue whales -- as well as 850 smaller minke whales.

It will be the first time that Japan has hunted humpback whales since an international moratorium on the species took effect in 1966 due to overhunting. The former Soviet Union also defied the moratorium through the 1980s.

Western conservationists say that humpback and fin whale populations are still vulnerable. Australia has warned that killing humpbacks would seriously worsen an already bitter feud with Japan on whaling.

Humpbacks migrate northwards along Australia's coast to breed each year.
Their slow and majestic progression draws some 1.5 million whale watchers annually, pumping an estimated 225 million US dollars into Australia's economy."It's important that Japan understands that the inclusion of humpbacks will have an impact on perceptions of Japan in Australia," Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said earlier this year. Japan counters that Western nations are insensitive to its culture and that whale populations are recovering. Japan makes no secret that the whale meat goes onto dinner plates and also says that "lethal research" helps keep data on the giant mammals.

"Japan's research makes a valuable contribution to the management of Antarctic whale species to ensure that any future commercial whaling regime is robust and sustainable to provide a reliable food source for generations to come," Minoru Morimoto, head of the government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research, said last week.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a hardline splinter group of Greenpeace, denounced Japan as "viciously cruel" for hunting humpbacks. Sea Shepherd has pledged to stop the whalers in "Operation Migaloo," named after an elusive albino humpback beloved in Australia."As the relentless Japanese whalers seek to hunt down and kill Migaloo and his family, Sea Shepherd will be hunting the whalers with the firm objective of intervention against their illegal activities," a Sea Shepherd statement said.
During the last Antarctic hunt, Sea Shepherd activists tracking the fleet hurled bottles of chemicals at the fleet in an attempt to disrupt operations, leading Japan to label them "terrorists." 

A Guide to Environmental Non-Profits

News: How to distinguish groups doing good from ones that just sound good.

By Jonathan Stein and Michael Beckel

March/April 2006 Issue

With so many environmental groups sporting similar names and missions, what's an interested citizen to do? How can anyone distinguish between the "Center for Whale Research" and the "Institute for Cetacean Research"? Between "Wildlife Trust" and "The Wildlife Trusts"? "The Ocean Conservancy" and "Conserve Our Ocean Legacy"?

You can—and must. The Center for Whale Research, for instance, monitors killer whales in the Pacific Northwest, but the Institute for Cetacean Research is a front group for Japanese whaling interests. Very different.

Complete article:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2006/03/environmental_groups.html

Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
http://www.wdcs.org/

The Oceania Project --Caring for Whales Dolphins and the Oceans
http://www.oceania.org.au/

World WildLife Fund - Cetaceans
http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Sea Shepherd's mission is to conserve and protect the world's marine wilderness eco-systems and marine wildlife species.
http://www.seashepherd.org/

Joan Ocean
Regarded as an authority on the subject of Dolphin Tel-Empathic Communication, Joan has developed the methodologies of her work, entitled Participatory Research, in which human and cetacean species are equally conducting research with each other.
http://www.joanocean.com

You may have read about the female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (Outside the Golden Gate off the California coast) and radioed an environmental group for help. 

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so badly off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her...

a very dangerous proposition.
 One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. 

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.  When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. 

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