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Animal rights activists get over 125,000 signatures backing ban on capturing whales

The signatures addressing Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeyev were gathered for two petitions: 76,589 signatures on the Greenpeace Russia website and 49,352 signatures on the Change.org platform

© Yuri Smityuk/TASS

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. Animal rights activists have gathered more than 125,000 signatures for petitions to ban the capture of beluga whales and orcas for oceanariums in order to avoid a recurrence of the Primorsky Region’s recent "whale jail" scandal, the Greenpeace Russia press service reported on Monday.

"Representatives for the Russian office of Greenpeace and the ‘Freedom for Orcas and Beluga Whales’ coalition simultaneously submitted signatures with a demand to prohibit the capture of cetaceans for educational and cultural purposes," the report says.

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It was noted that signatures addressing Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeyev were gathered for two petitions: 76,589 signatures on the Greenpeace Russia website and 49,352 signatures on the Change.org platform.

"If there is no ban for capture strictly enshrined in the law, orcas and beluga whales will be captured and sold to China again. This business can be compared to the drug and arms markets in its efficiency and immorality. It has high-profile lobbyists," said Oganes Targulyan, an expert from Greenpeace Russia.

Whale of a saga

Ninety beluga whales and 11 orcas caught for sale to China had been kept in the Primorsky Region’s Srednyaya Bay since the summer of 2018, but later three beluga whales and one orca got lost. According to investigators, during the whales’ capture violations were detected and a criminal case on the illegal seizure of bioresources was launched.

In June, the gradual transportation of the marine mammals to the north of the Khabarovsk Region began for their release into the wild in groups. The first batch, consisting of two orcas and six beluga whales, was released into the sea on June 27. Three orcas were set free on July 16, and three more marine animals on August 6. Another group of orcas and six beluga whales were let go on August 27.

The last batch of beluga whales was released into the Primorsky Region on November 10. On October 24, a council of VNIRO (Russia’s Research Institute for Fisheries and Oceanography) scientists decided to free the remaining 50 beluga whales into a bay near the Lazovsky Nature Reserve due to approaching seasonal storms, and not into the Sea of Okhotsk as had been initially planned. The operation to release the marine mammals was held on November 8-10 in several stages.

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