Luckily the whales arent there, now to track them down! ~The backstory – Russia recently captured killer whales for display, their whereabouts are still unclear, and even in the best of circumstances they face miserable lives. PRI: How do you hide something that weighs as much as six tons, is 20 feet long and requires hundreds of pounds of food every day? That’s the mystery researchers and conservationists are trying to solve, as they search for eight orca whales they believe were captured in Russian waters. Rumors surfaced that two of the whales were going to be put on display at the 2014 Winter Olympics. And that ignited a firestorm. An online petition, widely circulating on Twitter, demanded that the Russian company White Sphere not put the orcas in a dolphinarium in Sochi. At last count, the online petition had 400,000 signatures. According to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), the plans to exhibit the orcas in Sochi was postponed: WDC research fellow, Erich Hoyt has reported today that “No orcas will be exhibited at the Olympics in Sochi”. He also reports that “no dolphin will carry the torch, as earlier proposed by the region. Both of these confirmed by the President, Sochi Olympic Committee.” “There had been a plan to send orcas to Sochi (but not necessarily for the Olympics) in early December but it was postponed. The Sochi Dolphinarium was involved inthe capture of the 7 orcas in the Okhotsk Sea in 2013 so at some point they might be expected to take delivery. For now, at least 2 orcas, including Narnia, are staying in small pens in Moscow while others have gone to China. No orcas are performing yet in Russia or China and we suppose they are now being trained for the circus shows.”
Posted on: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 20:55:56 +0000
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