Two major news items today: First, the renowned conservationist Dr. Carl Safina has joined the board of the Whale Sanctuary Project.
And board member Charles Vinick has accepted the position of Executive Director.
We’ve just issued a news release that you can read in full here.
Carl Safina is the founding president of the not-for-profit The Safina Center. He has long been a friend and colleague of Whale Sanctuary Project President Dr. Lori Marino, who describes him as “one of those rare human beings who understands that other animals are individuals.”
She adds: “He’ll be able to carry that message into the broader conservation world, and will provide a critical link between the work of the sanctuary and the preservation of the oceans.”
Carl’s work explores how we are changing the natural world and what the changes mean for human and non-human beings. He says we cannot preserve the wild unless we preserve human dignity, and we cannot conserve human dignity while continuing to degrade nature.
Carl hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean, and is author of the classic book Song for the Blue Ocean. His seventh book is Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel.
He lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife Patricia and their dogs and feathered friends.
Charles Vinick, our new Executive Director, is best known to supporters of the Whale Sanctuary Project as the person who directed the journey of Keiko, the whale of Free Willy fame, from 1998 to 2002.
For more than 20 years, Charles was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Cousteau Society and of Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society. He has been on the board of the Whale Sanctuary Project since its incorporation last year. And for the last several months, he has been working closely with Lori Marino in the work of site selection and building the organization. Most recently, they visited British Columbia together to explore possible locations for the sanctuary
We’ll be posting more about Charles Vinick and Carl Safina over the coming weeks. Their work on behalf of the whales is invaluable.