ExxonMobil ignored gray whales
(wwfnews / 04-08-09) The Western Gray Whale population is at great risk of extinction. It is imperative that all oil companies operating in its feeding area acknowledge the effects of their operations on the whales, which have just arrived to feed for the summer, and immediately halt all damaging industrial activities until the whales have left.”
ExxonMobil has ignored a petition from more than 50,000 people demanding the oil and gas giant and several other companies suspend activities that harm the Western, one of the world’s most critically endangered whales.
The thousands of signatures from around the world were delivered on petitions to the CEO of ExxonMobil in Irving, Texas, and Exxon’s Moscow headquarters, just as the first whales arrived at their summer feeding grounds – the area of Exxon’s Sakhalin I oil and gas project – at northeast Sakhalin Island, in the Russian Far East.
Despite requests from Pacific Environment and WWF to deliver a response within a two week deadline, Exxon remained silent.
The petition urges Exxon, Rosneft, and other oil companies operating in the area to suspend all oil and gas development activities near the critically endangered Western gray whale’s annual feeding habitat off the coast of Sakhalin Island, and calls for the creation of the Sakhalin Marine Federal Wildlife Reserve.
“The Western gray whale population is at great risk of extinction,” said Aleksey Knizhnikov, Oil & Gas Environmental Policy Officer, WWF-Russia. “It is imperative that all oil companies operating in its feeding area acknowledge the effects of their operations on the whales, which have just arrived to feed for the summer, and immediately halt all damaging industrial activities until the whales have left.”
There are only about 130 Western gray whales remaining, including just 25 breeding females. These whales feed only in the summer and autumn, and their primary feeding area lies in and adjacent to Exxon’s Sakhalin-1 project in the Piltun Bay area.
