Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project has taken on crucial campaigns on behalf of whales and dolphins in 2015. Our Earth Island Team, along with our colleagues, has built on the impact of the Blackfish documentary to spark a major shift in public attitudes about dolphinariums in the U.S. More and more people are recognizing that places that keep orcas, beluga whales, and dolphins in captivity are not appropriate for these intelligent, social, and wide-ranging species, and also that forced breeding and circus performances must be ended. We are taking advantage of that shift by educating and activating legislators, as well as engaging in legal actions to help put an end to captivity in the U.S. for these sentient cetaceans.
We are ending 2015 with a number of important accomplishments, and, with your continuing support, 2016 promises even stronger protections. Here are some of the past year’s highlights:
• Celebrated 25th anniversary of our Dolphin Safe Tuna program, which saves the lives of up to 100,000 dolphins annually and includes more than 500 tuna companies worldwide that fish without harm to dolphins.
• Convinced Save Mart Supermarkets to stop selling dolphin-deadly tuna from Mexico in their stores.
• Won a major legal victory preventing the Georgia Aquarium from importing 18 wild-caught beluga whales from Russia for lives in captivity. We are now urging the Georgia Aquarium to go back and release the belugas into their ocean home waters.
• Worked together with Australians for Dolphins to undertake and promote the first lawsuit in Japan against the Taiji Whale Museum, opening the door to future li ltigation against the dolphin slaughter. The lawsuit comes to trial in January, with a decision expected early in 2016.
• Played a key role convincing the California Coastal Commission to ban future orca breeding at SeaWorld San Diego as part of its tank expansion proposal. SeaWorld has threatened to sue the Coastal Commission, so we are arranging for our pro-bono attorneys to intervene in the case to defend the captive orcas and the Commission’s decision.
• Sponsored the Fukushima Kids Dolphin Camp for children who are victims of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, so they could swim with and learn about wild dolphins on dolphin-friendly Mikura Island in Japan. These kids are now growing up loving dolphins and the out-of-doors despite the constraints on them from living surrounded by radioactive soils.
• Filed a precedent-setting lawsuit against SeaWorld to compel them to tell the truth about how orcas suffer in captivity. We are also beating back SeaWorld’s effort to combine our lawsuit with other federal lawsuits and move them to federal court in Florida. Our remand hearing to move the case back to the state of California court comes up in January.
• Helped push the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, after a ten-year effort, to finally crack down on Japan’s zoos and aquariums to stop purchases of wild dolphins from the Taiji, a major economic underpinning of the dolphin slaughter. We will need to be vigilant and work to stop other aquariums, not affiliated with WAZA, from buying wild dolphins from Taiji for captive entertainment.
Thank you for continuing support for our ongoing work for dolphins and whales in 2016. We intend to keep the pressure on the International Whaling Commission at its next meeting later in the year. The Taiji dolphin slaughter continues through February, and we will continue to report on the killing and analyzing the results. Our work around the world to ensure that tuna fisheries live up to the strict standards of Dolphin Safe in markets around the world is a job that continues all year long.
I hope you have a great holiday season and a happy new year.
P.S. We recently launched our new website, bringing all five of our major campaigns under one site. Check it out and the many ways you can take action to help.