Creative Wedding Ideas - Act Now to Help Save the Whales

(ARA) - The ocean is anything but a quiet place. Spend a little time watching the water and you may see the breathtaking grace of a whale bursting through the surface; or you could hear the stunning clicks and squeals of whales communicating with each other in deep water. Watching them in the ocean, it's easy to forget that these mammals are still endangered.

Whales face more threats today than at any other time in history. While commercial whaling has been banned for more than 20 years, some countries continue to fire harpoons into these gentle creatures. Since whaling was banned in 1986, more than 30,000 whales have been slaughtered for commercial purposes.

According to Patrick Ramage, Global Whale Program Director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, "Commercial whaling is cruel, does not meet any pressing human need and poses a serious threat to the survival of the world's remaining whales."

After hundreds of years of exploitation, whale populations remain at risk from hunting, but also from ship strikes, entanglements in nets and global warming. Given all these threats, whale populations cannot withstand the resurgence of commercial whaling.

Ensuring healthy whale populations is critical to restoring the health of the world's oceans. Different species of whales feed on everything from plankton to squid and some whales have veritable communities of small fish and other creatures living on them. As whales are removed from the ocean, the populations of fish that they eat become disproportionally larger and this can become unhealthy for other marine creatures. Whales don't have many natural predators, so whaling can decimate their numbers quickly.

You can help stop whaling by supporting the creation of a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary. The sanctuary is an important whale conservation area that provides bordering nations with opportunities to develop whale-watching operations. Additionally, the sanctuary would provide a safe area to conduct humane and legitimate scientific research.

Visit www.StopWhaling.org to sign the petition to support the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary and tell your friends and family to sign the petition as well. You can also send a letter to ambassadors opposing the creation of the sanctuary telling them to vote for it. Visit www.StopWhaling.org and help protect the whales, who can't protect themselves, against the threat of whaling.

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