ACTION ALERT - August 26, 2003
Send Luna Home ... NOT to the Vancouver Aquarium!
WHY GET INVOLVED NOW?
For the past couple of years, the Coalition For No Whales In Captivity
has been monitoring the situation with Luna, the young male orca
who got lost and ended up in Nootka Sound (Northern Vancouver Island)
while his mother and family pod swim in the waters between the Southern
Gulf Islands in Canada and the San Juan Islands in the USA.
This whale is just like a lost kid who needs to go home to his
mom. Most people seem to understand that, but we're concerned that
officers working for Canada's federal fisheries department (DFO)
might not recommend that he go home when pressed to make a decision
on the fate of Luna this week.
We are concerned that the DFO might choose instead to let the Vancouver
Aquarium capture Luna and put him on display.
It is shocking that the DFO is even considering captivity for this
young whale when his mother lives only a few hundred kilometers
away. We can't help but wonder if Luna is being considered as a
candidate for captivity because a few key DFO people making the
decisions are former aquarium employees, like John Ford and Graeme
Ellis, or long-time aquarium directors like DFO's Pacific Regional
Director John Davis.
No doubt "rescuing" Luna and placing him in the show
tank would be a major financial coup (at such low cost!) for the
aquarium. Un-informed people would line up and pay their $15 to
take a look at this whale-celebrity lingering a slow death in captivity..
VANCOUVER'S PARK BYLAW WILL NOT SAVE LUNA FROM CAPTIVITY
Although the Vancouver Park Board drafted a bylaw in 1996, which
was intended to stop once and for all the importation of captive
whales and dolphins into the Vancouver Aquarium, the aquarium managed
to insert into the bylaw loopholes that among other things, would
allow the aquarium to bring into captivity "rescued" cetaceans
belonging to endangered populations. Luna fits the bill perfectly.
The Coalition For No Whales In Captivity has asked the Vancouver
Park Board commissioners to close the loophole that allows the aquarium
to bring Luna into captivity. The commissioners will meet with us
again in the fall, but unfortunately, that might be too late for
Luna.
THE FATE OF LUNA WILL BE DECIDED THIS WEEK
PLEASE - it's time YOU get involved and help reunite Luna with
his family pod!
WRITE TO:
Marilyn Joyce
Marine Mammal Coordinator
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
200 - 401 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 5G3
Canada
Telephone: (604) 666-9965
Facsimile: (604) 666-3341
JoyceM@pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Honorable Robert Thibault
House of Commons
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Parliament Buildings, Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Canada
Tel: (613) 996-2358
Fax: (613) 952-1458
E-Mail: Min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Don't let Luna become another victim of captivity, let's send
him home instead!
Coalition For No Whales In Captivity
Box 461 - 1755 Robson St., Vancouver, BC V6G 3B7 Canada
Tel (604) 736-9514 E-mail cfnwic@whaleprotection.org
www.whaleprotection.org
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