Welcome to the Great Whale Trail Page of
Gerry Kichok
My Message
Hi, I've joined the Great Whale Trail with Greenpeace. I'm raising money to end whaling in the Southern Ocean and make the oceans safe for all whales. Please support me!
This year, whalers plan kill almost 1,000 minke whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 50 endangered fin whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the name of "scientific research". To stop this and keep the oceans safe for whales, I've joined Greenpeace's Great Whale Trail. I'm following the journey of the whales as they migrate to the Southern Ocean.
Please support me by donating to my Great Whale Trail page. Together we can end whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Thanks for your support!
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The Great Whale Trail
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Whales must not be allowed to die in the thousands for needless, discredited "research," and we're satellite tracking whales in the Southern Ocean to prove it.
[3 simple steps to help save the whales] The Great Whale Trail is a collaboration between Greenpeace and scientists working on humpback whales in the South Pacific. With financial support from Greenpeace, humpback whales were tagged by the Cook Islands Whale Research and Opération Cétacés (New Caledonia).
The whales were tracked via satellite ands they migrate from breeding and calving areas in the tropical South Pacific to the feeding grounds of the Southern Ocean.
This project produced important information on the movements and migratory destinations of humpback whales from small, unrecovered populations off Rarotonga (Cook Islands) and New Caledonia.
Greenpeace is communicating this critical non-lethal scientific research to the wider public as part of their campaign against Japan's unnecessary lethal "research" in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
On their journey, the humpbacks, like hundreds of thousands of other whales, face a range of threats including ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, pollution and the impacts of climate change.
Every year, more than 300,000 whales and dolphins die just caught in nets. The one place you might think they would be safe is a whale sanctuary like the Southern Ocean. Not so. Once in Antarctic waters they face the threat most easily ended - whaling.
The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was meant to be a safe haven but every year the Fisheries Agency of Japan send a fleet of whaling ships to kill in the name of science. For the third year running they aim to hunt down almost 1,000 minke whales.
This year, they also plan to kill 50 threatened humpback whales and 50 endangered fin whales.
All of these whales will die for so-called 'scientific research' - but even the International Whaling Commission has labelled the "research" needless and urged the Japanese government to stop.
In reality, the "research" is commercial whaling in disguise - and the whale meat actually ends up in supermarket shelves in Japan, even though few people eat it anymore. Commercial whaling is banned under IWC rules.
In contrast, the Great Whale Trail project is contributing to real scientific efforts without killing whales.
Join me in raising money to protect the climate for future generations.
Greenpeace has been campaigning to protect the whales for many years and have had many successes. Our campaigns have included pushing for the establishment of the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, which happened in 1994. We are now working to end the hunt that is happening within the sanctuary by demonstrating that you don’t have to kill whales to study them.
The humpback whale tagging program we launched with scientists in New South Whales earlier this year has already resulted in the Japanese government removing endangered humpbacks from the quota this year!
We will use the research we have been conducting to demonstrate to members of the International Whaling Commission that the hunt is unnecessary and that they should close the loophole in the regulations allowing for hunting whales in the sanctuary for “research purposes”.
Because we believe that we need to be a strongly independent organization to carry out our work we don’t accept government or corporate funding. Instead we rely on individuals to supports and engage in our work. The Great Whale Trail program is about giving people an opportunity to get engaged in the campaign.
Thank you for your support and donation.
If you think this page contains objectionable content, please inform the system administrator at pmero@greenpeace.org
My Sponsors
Gerry Kichok
$30.00
I hope more people will join me in my personal fight to save the whales. This has been a very long journey for me, when I was just in Elementary School I remember a visitor came to our school. Then later that week we painted posters to display in Vancouver, BC to "Save the Whales"; this was way back in the 1970's. I have never given up hope.
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