By Dr. Lori Marino
This year, 2017, was our first full year as the Whale Sanctuary Project, and thanks to you it has exceeded our expectations.
Three areas of success stand out: Site selection, fund raising, and the growing movement to bring an end to keeping whales and dolphins in concrete tanks.
Fund Raising
Our work overall is made possible by our primary sponsor, Munchkin Inc., makers of fine products for babies and children, which made a $300,000 donation to the Whale Sanctuary Project this year.
Steven Dunn, the CEO, asked that the $300k be in the form of a challenge grant to meet expenses for the year. And your donations for the year have now topped $300,000, thus matching Munchkin’s generous grant.
Congratulations, and many thanks to all of you who have contributed. You made it happen. And your year-end Holiday donation will be much appreciated.
Site Selection
When we started looking for the best place for a seaside sanctuary, there were literally thousands of possible bays, coves and inlets on the Pacific and Atlantic northern coasts. So, we began with a satellite imagery search, with help from volunteers and interns, scanning Google Earth maps with overlays providing valuable information about water depth, tidal flows and temperatures.
By mid-year, we’d narrowed the field to about 20 locations that merited visiting – most of them in the Johnstone Strait of British Columbia, in the Salish Sea off the coast of Washington State, and on the coast of Nova Scotia.
And now, at year’s end, we have just a handful of sites of interest.
This coming year, we begin the work of narrowing the field to one site and starting to create the sanctuary itself. The first step will be to deploy experts with equipment to conduct detailed environmental analyses of these top candidate sites.
A Growing Movement
In 2010, I joined a horrified world as Tilikum fatally attacked trainer Dawn Brancheau during a show at SeaWorld Orlando. I was heartbroken and angry. But many of us who had been studying whales in captivity knew that attacks like this one were not uncommon and were sure to happen again. These deeply intelligent, social and emotional animals cannot cope with confinement in concrete tanks.
A growing movement to bring an end to keeping whales and dolphins in concrete tanks.
And while there were already sanctuaries for elephants, tigers, primates and other animals formerly in zoos and circuses, there were none yet for dolphins and whales.
This year, a growing movement has been taking shape, here at home and around the world, to bring an end, once and for all, to keeping whales and dolphins in concrete tanks for the amusement of people who don’t understand the cost to these magnificent animals – and indeed to the people who care for them.
With your help, the Whale Sanctuary Project is on course to complete a model sanctuary where whales who are retired from display facilities will have a life that gives back as much as possible of what has been taken from them. A life where they can thrive.
Thank you for being part of this movement and for all your help and support. Together, we will create a better world for whales and set a more compassionate example for our children.
Lori Marino
President, the Whale Sanctuary Project.