Gray Whales

Australians for Animals has, for the last 12 years, led the campaign to Save the Gray Whale.   This magnificent Baleen Whale, ( the Eastern North Pacific Gray Whale) is the most ancient Baleen Whale alive today.  It is the only surviving population as the Western Pacific Gray Whale is almost extinct and the two races on either side of the Atlantic went extinct two centuries ago.

AFA became involved in this Northern Hemisphere whale in 1996, when the US delegation at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Aberdeen, Scotland, brought to the Convention meeting their plan to allow the Makah Tribe to kill Gray Whales.

It was very clear that the major US groups wanted nothing to do with so-called indigenous whaling. Too controversial and too difficult.   Never mind that the Makah tribe hadn’t whaled for 70 years or that the same tribe had practiced slavery but were not calling for a resumption of that heinous practice !

The precedent which would be put in place by a US native American Indian Tribe going whaling are pretty serious.  Other indigenous tribes could seek the same rights at IWC and in fact, the Gray Whale is currently the target species of a proposed Aboriginal Revised Management Scheme which would see many Gray Whales killed.

This is the same whale which comes to the small boats in Baja Mexico Lagunas where the whales nurse their young prior to the long migration back to the Arctic feeding grounds.    These majestic and magnificent creatures will come right up to the small boats allowing people to scratch their great stomachs; to slide their hands along the baleen plates and to play with the young calves.

AFA took up the challenge in 1996 and ran the first lawsuit to stop the Makah tribe from killing Gray whales.   A gray whale was slaughtered by the tribe before the legal challenge was finalised.  A juvenile gray whale who came up to the tribe’s high powered boat to be friendly.  Instead it was blasted out of the water and dragged ashore whilst some of the tribe danced on the dead whale’s corpse.

The Gray Whale is now very threatened.   Global warming and the subsequent loss of prey is having a disastrous impact.  As specialist feeders who depend on amphipods that thrive in very cold water, their dietary needs are heavily impacted by climate change.  In 2007, researchers estimated that 12% of the whales were emaciated.

As well, a comparatively new phenomenon has arisen.   ‘Stinky Whales’, as they are known, are now commonplace in the waters of Chukotka, Russia where Russian indigenous slaughter 140 Gray Whales a year.

Smelling like medical waste, the Stinky Gray Whales can be detected from miles away so intense is the odour.  Neither humans nor dogs will eat the meat as it is so contamined.

Gray Whales migrate from Mexico to Siberia.  One of the longest migrations in the entire world

AFA founded the California Gray Whale Coalition this year.  All relevant information can be found at: www.californiagraywhalecoalition.org