Help Save The Last 100 Western Gray Whales

Since 1997, IFAW has campaigned to protect the endangered Western Pacific Gray whale from the effects of oil exploration and development in its only known feeding ground off of the northeastern coast of Sakhalin Island, Russia, situated just north of Japan. From May until November each year, Western Gray whales come here to nurse their calves and feed for seven months.

Of the estimated 100 Western Grays that are still alive, there are only 23 reproductive females. IFAW works with scientists, government representatives, other NGOs, and oil companies to mitigate the effects of the Sakhalin oil and gas development on the gray whale population.

In 1999, IFAW created a coalition of non-governmental organizations to protect the Western Gray whale and their habitat near Sakhalin. IFAW, Greenpeace, PERC, WWF and the local NGO, Sakhalin Environment Watch, joined the coalition along with as many as 40 other environmental organizations in Russia.

An independent environmental review of the project (IUCN) concluded that the Gray whales are under threat of extinction due to the scale of oil mining. In March 2005, under pressure from IFAW and the NGO coalition the operating company of Sakhalin-2, Sakhalin Energy, announced the rerouting of its oil pipeline in the Piltun Bay area 20 kilometers southwards from the planned route, helping to reduce the threat from the pipeline to the gray whale.

IFAW also participated in the public Environmental Impact Assessments of the oil-and-gas development projects Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 and since 2000 has been funding the photo identification studies of the Russian-American (Alexander Burdin – David Weller) scientific group for Western Gray whales research.

Since 2004, IFAW has cooperated with Russian scientists in performing bio-acoustic monitoring of Western Gray whale feeding ground. During a decisive stage of the construction of the new Sakhalin Energy (Shell, Mitsui, Mitsubishi) oil platform, IFAW is onboard the Russian vessel Nadezhda for an entire month to collect independent data on the noise level generated by the building of the oil extraction area off the North-Eastern Sakhalin. If our research shows that the lives of the last 100 Western gray whales are endangered by this new construction, IFAW will insist that the build be halted.

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As a result of the scientific work carried out under IFAW supervision, over 30 scientific papers have been published on various aspects of the biology of Western Gray whales to help in the preservation efforts.