Another year has passed and we are deep into the wintertime here on Cape Cod. The thermometer is stuck below freezing- is it broken or will it get back to the heady temperatures of last summer when the whales were in Cape Cod Bay and Massachusetts Bay feeding, pairing and nursing before heading back to the winter grounds in the West Indies.
This year we have decided to send one of the team to Salt Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands for two weeks with a camera to work with some friends of WDCS to see if any of the Gulf of Maine humpbacks can be identified. It is the first time we have taken this step: partly to garner important scientific data such as learning whether these animals simply pass the island or calve there, as well as to find out if they are part of the Gulf of Maine feeding stock from which our Adoption whales originate; and partly to keep a watchful eye on the holiday developments that are occurring in tandem with burgeoning or unregulated whale watch activity. The Caribbean is a critical breeding ground for the Gulf of Maine humpbacks and any disturbance to this habitat will have a marked impact on the population, and maybe upon your whale. If you would like to support this expedition please click here https://whales.org/donateDFL1.asp and make a tax deductible donation to WDCS.
2007 promises to be a battle ground year for the protection of whales with the International Whaling Commission (“IWC”) meeting in Anchorage in May. This is immediately followed by the meeting of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (“CITES”) in the Netherlands. Japan has submitted a resolution to CITES that, if adopted, could result in the resumption of international trade of several species of whales currently protected by the IWC. Clearly it is Japan’s strategy to play one convention against the other. We at WDCS are working very hard to maintain both the IWC’s moratorium on whaling and CITES’ reciprocal ban on trade. This work, which necessitates the attendance of our team of experts at both meetings, is time consuming, painstaking and expensive. We rely on your support to continue this critical work. If you would like to support WDCS please click here https://whales.org/donateDFL2.asp and make a tax deductible donation to WDCS.
As part of ensuring that we maximize what we spend on our policy and campaigning activities, and decrease our paper consumption, we have listened to our membership and decided to reduce the number of issues of the Newsletter that will be printed and mailed. The latest edition of the Newsletter has been published electronically and is available for download http://whales.org/pdf/newsletter/feb07.pdf. This decision will have an impact on our income because we only hold half as many e-mail addresses as mailing addresses, but felt it was the right step to take. It means we are not unnecessarily using precious natural resources.
We need your help in spreading the message about WDCS, its work and the issues that it faces on behalf of whales and dolphins all over the world. Please forward this e-mail to your friends and family and ask them to make a donation to support the work of WDCS. Better still, ask them to join WDCS so that they too can become an advocate for whales, like you, and seek to protect these incredible creatures that we humans are threatening to destroy forever.
Regards
Michael Waterson
Treasurer
WDCS (NA)
http://www.whales.org
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WDCS is the global voice for the protection of whales, dolphins and their environment.