By Charles Vinick, Executive Director, the Whale Sanctuary Project

I’m sitting on the wharf, here at Port Hilford Bay, and behind me are 100 acres of water space that are going to be a sanctuary for captive whales. And I’m reminded of the times I spent in Iceland with Keiko, the “Free Willy” whale.

We’d brought him back from a marine entertainment park to the ocean where he’d been born some 20 years earlier. And we’d created a temporary sanctuary for him in a 15-acre netted-off bay, much smaller than the size of what we have here.

That’s how big this sanctuary is, and that’s what it means to give them back their freedom in nature.Once Keiko was in the water, he would swim across it and chase birds. And if there was rough weather, he’d just lift his head and the waves and the wind would come into his face and you could see and feel how he seemed to be just loving it. He was in his natural environment.

And it’s that same experience that I picture here. We’ll have whales in these waters, and they’ll be able to chase birds across the bay. They’ll be able to play in the water. They’ll have waves and all kinds of weather. And they’ll be exuberant.

That’s what you never see in a concrete tank at an entertainment park. You don’t see the whales living their own lives in their own natural environment. You only see them doing what they’re told to do. And what they have to do.

And that’s completely different from what the whales will have here at the sanctuary.

Here they’ll be able to choose whether they dive, whether they swim across the whole 100 acres. If one of our whales is all the way out at the far end of the perimeter, we’ll barely see them from here. That’s how big this sanctuary is, and that’s what it means to give them back their freedom in nature.

Of course, we’ll take care of them with food and with whatever medical care they need. But they’ll decide how they spend their time. And they’ll be spending it in nature.

Kiska, the lone orca at Marineland Canada

Think about Kiska for a moment. She’s the solitary orca at Marineland. And the pictures we’ve seen of her are not good. We’ve seen her slamming her body against the side of the tank, over and over. It’s like if you or I were in solitary confinement, pacing back and forth endlessly. It’s the same kind of thing that happens with whales when they’re confined in a tank.

Of course, we don’t yet know whether we can bring Kiska here. That’s not up to us. Right now, she’s basically “owned” by a marine entertainment park, a private company.

Right now, Kiska’s situation is urgent, and so is the situation for all the other whales at Marineland. The reports we hear every day – many of them from people like you who have sent us photos and video – is very troubling.

But we’re confident that working with Marineland or with the government or both, we can find a solution so that she can begin a new life in a natural environment.

And we think of the belugas, too, who are at Marineland. And of orcas and belugas in other entertainment parks, where the owners are trying to figure out what they should do next.

A new home for whales that can make up for so much of what has gone before.So, we know that there is growing interest from all over the world. And that’s why I’m asking you to help us build this sanctuary.

Together, we can do this. And your donation is the key to bringing it about.

This year, we have completed a comprehensive professional evaluation of the sanctuary site – the water quality, the tidal flows, the plant and animal life – to ensure that the bay will be a good home for the whales and that we can maintain the high quality of the marine environment. And we’re well advanced in our review processes with federal, provincial and local authorities.

Next year, 2022, is the year we create the sanctuary itself: a new home for whales that can make up for so much of what has gone before. A home where they can be in nature. As they’re meant to.

Thank you for your support of this unique project.

The post From Keiko to Kiska – Whales Without Walls appeared first on The Whale Sanctuary Project | Back to Nature.

And now, after a year of site development work, we’re delighted to have reached the next important milestone: deciding the specific placement of the sanctuary within this large bay.

The sanctuary site will encompass this extensive area of approximately 110 acres of ocean around Barachois Island in Port Hilford Bay, Nova Scotia.

There have been two main elements to reaching this next stage. The first involved several months of gathering environmental data to understand as much as possible about every aspect of the bay and its surrounding land. That’s because the 110 acres that will be the whales’ home need to be in an environment that’s interesting, varied and enriching, safe and healthy both for them and for all the other living creatures who inhabit the bay. For example, it should be deep in some places and shallow in others; with a sandy sea floor in some parts and a variable sea floor in others – rich in plant and animal life and basically a place the whales can truly call home.

To understand all of this, we’ve been documenting water depths around the bay, along with the nature of the seafloor below, and testing the water chemistry, the salinity, the temperature gradients, water flow transfer rates and freshwater egress into the bay. Most recently, we completed the hydrodynamic model, which tells us what we need to know about currents, tides, waves and surges so that we can position the sanctuary very precisely and place the nets accordingly.

One of the instruments used in developing the hydrodynamic model.

The second aspect of site development has involved understanding how the sanctuary can work most successfully with all the people who have an interest in the bay and a relationship to it. These include the local communities of Port Hilford, Wine Harbour, and Sherbrooke and the district of St Mary’s; the people who live and work on the bay; the Mi’kmaq Nation; the federal, provincial and local officials who are charged with issuing the necessary permits; and with other interested people and organizations of all kinds throughout Nova Scotia.

Bringing it all together during a pandemic

Accomplishing all of this has been something of a challenge in that right on the heels of our announcing Port Hilford as the location for the sanctuary, the COVID-19 virus all but shut down travel between the United States and Canada (and even between Nova Scotia and the rest of Canada). That made the next stage of our work a lot more complicated. But with lots of teleconferencing, along with help and support from the local community, we were able to press ahead.

Finally, just two weeks ago, it all came together. And at a community meeting in Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia, Lori Marino and I were delighted to announce that the sanctuary will be located in 110 acres of ocean around the wharf near the mouth of Port Hilford Bay.

This location has the full support of the fishermen who moor their boats at the wharf and fish for lobsters in the waters nearby. They are truly rolling up their sleeves with us. And while we’re no longer surprised by that level of support, it is just terrific.

We have also reached an agreement in principle – subject to our having all the governmental permitting in place – to purchase prime coastline that will border the sanctuary waters and provide a highly enriching area for the whales as well as exclusive use of the wharf.

It has the deepest water – 18 meters of depth off Barachois Island – and shallows as well. There’s a lot of variety in the substrate and the coast, which is exactly what’s needed for a whale sanctuary.

Next stages

Being able to settle on a specific location within Port Hilford Bay leads us into the next stage of permitting with the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry.

It also means we must immediately be even more active in raising the funds necessary to build the sanctuary itself. I look forward to describing this in more detail. And with your continuing help, we look forward to being able to welcome the first whales by the end of next year.

Thank you, as always, for making this such a unique opportunity for the whales. Together, we can give them a new life that makes up for so much of what they have endured.

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The post A Major Update on the Creation of the Whale Sanctuary appeared first on The Whale Sanctuary Project | Back to Nature.

The selection of Port Hilford as the location for our whale sanctuary launches the next phase of activity for the Whale Sanctuary Project – site development –  with every aspect of our work directed towards construction and future operations. These are the days we have all anticipated and they are very exciting.

We can now stand on the banks of the bay and visualize all the opportunities we have to create an authentic sanctuary. Port Hilford is a wonderful site. It offers expansive space and good depth for the whales to swim, dive and experience a natural sea-side environment. They can explore the sea-floor, chase birds on the surface and spend their time in nature. For all of us, it is no longer hypothetical. It’s real. And we have no time to lose to bring the sanctuary plan to fruition.

They can explore the sea floor, chase birds on the surface and spend their time in nature.The work ahead requires our team to be working on many fronts simultaneously. We are truly privileged in these difficult times of travel restrictions and required social distancing that much of our work can be done with video conferencing and the communication tools that enable our staff in the U.S. to be in constant contact with our Canadian colleagues, initiating the activities that are necessary in this phase of sanctuary development.

Nova Scotia Fisheries and Aquaculture has been designated as the lead provincial agency for our permit, lease and license to operate the whale sanctuary. With their leadership, we will be working with many other provincial and federal agencies including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Transport Canada, the Department of the Environment and many others.

We have initiated on-site environmental data collection to document the water chemistry, measuring and analyzing everything from salinity to temperature gradients, water flow transfer rates and fresh water egress into the bay. All of this data feeds into the scoping program for our permit.

None of this work can be done in a vacuum. During the two years of the site selection phase of our work, we held numerous community meetings, initiated talks with the Mi’kmaq Nation, and sought input from interested people and organizations throughout Nova Scotia.

Now, as we move into this site development phase in Port Hilford, we will be doing more formal consultation with all of these individuals, groups and organizations.

Simultaneously, we are initiating the engineering analysis of the site and planning for on-site and off-site infrastructure and facilities, all of which leads to the design of the sanctuary, which we will do hand-in-hand with the community. These include the animal care center with full-time veterinary services, freezers for the fish the whales will eat, offices for researchers and staff and security personnel, as well as the kinds of behind the scenes planning that is so necessary for water service, electricity and road access.

As we consider all the elements that provide high quality life for the whales, we are also planning for the interpretive center where children and adults can learn about the whales in the sanctuary as well as about cetaceans more broadly. What kind of facility should this be? What makes it unique? Should it be adjacent to the sanctuary or will it better serve the community at an off-site location? These are the kinds of questions we are studying with our planning teams.

Picture yourself standing on the banks of Port Hilford. Until now the whale sanctuary has been a vision, imagined in our mind’s eye. Now, with every passing day, it is becoming real.

Your support has sustained the vision and we hope you will now invest in bringing the vison to reality.

The post We Couldn’t Have Chosen a Better Site! appeared first on The Whale Sanctuary Project | Back to Nature.

This is exceptional progress, and so many of you have made this possible through your participation and support of our Whale Aid Russia program.

Both the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Sakhalin Environmental Watch activist group have said that the release of the orcas could not have been accomplished without the work of the Jean-Michel Cousteau/Whale Sanctuary Project team.

Seeing these whales swimming exuberantly in the open sea for the first time in almost a year is heartwarming. You can see and feel the “joy” of the whales in the photos and videos.

That is not to say that the releases have all gone perfectly. The Russian government contracted with the fishing companies (the captors) to transport the whales back to the waters from which they were taken. And while there was certainly some logic to doing it this way, the government did not accept, or believed they could not execute, some of our recommendations for the releases.

For example, we had outlined methodologies for preparing the whales for transport, keeping them in larger transport containers, and adapting them to the open ocean in sea pens at the release site prior to release. Instead the Russians have been releasing the whales from their transport boxes immediately upon reaching the release site after a five-day transport.

We also pressed for independent monitoring of the whole program. And this was introduced for the third transport/release, with Greenpeace Russia being invited to officially observe the entire operation.

But overall, the process has been successful. And yesterday, August 29th, Grigory Tsidulko, a member of the Council for Marine Mammals and of the Whale Sanctuary Project team, reported that the orca known as Vasilievna, who had been part of the first group of orcas released on June 27th, had been seen hunting and sharing food with a group of wild whales. This is a milestone in the program, showing that these captured orcas can indeed be returned to the ocean and successfully find their families or another group that will adopt them.

Next: Returning the remaining 75 belugas

Photo courtesy of VNIRO

Along with the 10 orcas in the first phase of the transport/release program, 12 belugas were also returned to the ocean, leaving 75 to be released before the onset of winter.

Because of the large number involved and the difficulty in tracking belugas once they are released, this next phase will likely be the most challenging. We are in continuing contact with the scientists overseeing the program and are providing additional suggestions and recommendations.

Meanwhile, we are also advising on the monitoring of all the whales. Many of them have satellite tags attached to their dorsal fins, and we have proposed additional methodologies for tracking them to increase the likelihood of visual contact. This will help us to establish if they have joined other wild whales, which is very important for their long-term well-being.

All in all, there is still much to do to complete the release of the rest of the original 97 orcas and belugas before the weather changes.

At the same time, we are also negotiating with the Ministry of Natural Resources, at their invitation, for a longer-term relationship, and we are keeping pressure on Russia to fulfill their public statement to end the capture of orcas and belugas altogether.

(Two months ago, during President Putin’s annual “Direct Line” televised phone-in with the Russian people, Deputy Prime Minister Gordeyev announced that the government would change the law in order to ban hunting whales for “educational and cultural purposes” – a loophole used to capture these whales.)

We know that the government is getting a lot of pushback from fishing companies, and a permanent ban on the capture of wild whales and dolphins for sale to marine entertainment parks – mostly in China – has to be an ultimate goal of all of this work.

Again, none of what has been accomplished so far would have been possible without the continuing participation and support of so many of you. And while there is still much to be completed, we should all take a moment to recognize that this is a landmark event: the largest whale rescue and release program in history. Thank you again.

The post All 10 Orcas from the Whale Jail Have Now Been Returned to the Ocean appeared first on The Whale Sanctuary Project | Back to Nature.

We narrowed the list down to 30 sites and then visited all of them.

Several that would be ideal for the whales would not be so good for the humans caring for them as they are too remote for year-round living and they lack basic infrastructure.

As we eliminated some, we also added a few more. And we’re now at the point where we are focused on three central considerations: physical criteria, potential impacts on wildlife, and compatibility with the local community.

Physical criteria: These include basic oceanographic and hydrologic analyses of depth, sea-floor conditions, tides and currents, run-off and pollution, flora and fauna, as well as where and how to build the nets, and access to fresh water and electric power.

Impacts on Wildlife: In addition to being concerned about how sanctuary residents might be affected by local wildlife, we also have to evaluate potential impacts they may have on free-ranging animals outside of the sanctuary.

This is particularly sensitive in areas that are critical habitat for endangered populations like the Southern Resident Killer Whales in the Northwest and North Atlantic right whales in the Northeast.

Community Interests: Equally important are the concerns of the local community: commercial and recreational fishing interests, access for boats, population density along the shoreline and other “stakeholder interests.”

So, it’s not just a matter of our selecting a site; the site also needs to select the sanctuary. When a local community embraces the idea of having a whale sanctuary and sees it as a long-term benefit to all that they hold dear for their community, then we have a partnership that will lead to successfully creating a home for captive orcas and belugas.

Once we have determined that a site is suitable both for the whales and for the human community, we can then proceed to apply for the necessary permits, acquisition of the actual site, and the most exciting part of all: creating the sanctuary itself and welcoming the first whales.

Sanctuary Specs

• 100 acres of water
• Minimum depth of 50 feet for at least half the sanctuary
• Protection from extreme weather
• Free of sewage, pollutants and noise
• Good flushing rate
• Ability to create separate areas for medical and management
• Not a lot of human activity or boat traffic.

This post is excerpted from our Fall Newsletter. We send the complete newsletter to everyone who’s donated in the last year, so if you’d like to receive a copy, please make your donation now. Your gift, large or small, will be worth twice as much since our lead sponsor, Munchkin, Inc, is matching all donations this year up to a total of $300,000.  

Thank you for supporting the Whale Sanctuary Project.

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