Bondi Whale Festival Sunday 27th June 2010

We had a great Whale Festival on Sunday 27^th June 2010 here outside the Marine Discovery Centre!

The festival was a great success, drawing over 10,000 people to the forecourt of the Bondi Pavilion to see IFAW’s life-size inflatable whale and to learn all about whales from 7 well known marine and animal conservation groups who set up info-stalls. The successful ‘Whale Tail’ kids colouring competition and resultant giant whale-tail display on the sand collated 800 mini-whale-tails from 10 local schools and 400 participants on the day. Marine Mammal Research.com volunteers put them in the hallowed sands of Bondi Beach – surrounded by a huge band of drummers from InRhythm - that helped make a really loud and colourful statement to the world that says “Hands of our Humpbacks”!

True Blue Cruises was kind enough to donate the major prize for the competition – a family pass on one of their vessels to see the whales up close and personal! Another of the festival’s highlights was a free guided whale watching walk up to Marks Park headland with Dr Michelle Blewitt of Marine Mammal Research (MMR). To see more about this year’s event go here.

Check out some of the photos from the day online at the Wentworth Courier at http://wentworth-courier.whereilive.com.au/photos/gallery/the-bondi-whale-festival-at-bondi-beach/ and http://wentworth-courier.whereilive.com.au/news/story/watching-out-for-our-gigantic-marine-visitors

Many thanks to the students and teachers of Kesser Torah, Montessori East, Bondi Public, Bondi Beach Public & Iluka Childcare centre for producing all those wonderful Whale Tails at such short notice - a great display of solidarity with our whales as these gentle giants pass by our great city.

Who knows, maybe all that wonderful innocent energy and positive vibes coming from all those children may have influenced those be-suited IWC representatives from the key nations a world away in Agadir, Morocco, to not allow the resumption of commercial whaling. This meant the Bondi Whale Festival was more of a celebration to say ‘well done’ to those key IWC representatives – and a strong public notice to say that Australia needs to continue in its legal action at the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Japanese ‘scientific’ whaling in the Southern Ocean – our new PM, needs to know this is a very important issue for Australians – do us proud Julia!

Some of these children were prize winners in the Whale Tail decorating competition.

Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace were both there on the day – helping to do their bit for protecting whales in the Southern waters.

Dozens of families also joined in the ‘Whale Trail’ activity, where they visited 6 different ‘stations’ set up on the day to answer the questions, uncovering amazing facts about whales as they went. First prize, won by Ty, was a family gift-voucher for a whale-watching adventure eco-tour kindly donated by True Blue Cruises (valued at $189). Second prize awarded to Aiden, a DVD on Humpback Whales donated by the ABC shop, Bondi Junction. Third prize was two children’s whale books donated by the MDC which went to the lucky Georgie and Tom. Fourth and Fifth prizes also donated book were won by Maxwell and Tiago. Dylan, Hugo, Hannah and Laura were all lucky recipients of 4 family passes to the Underwater Bondi Experience (valued at $25 each).

The highlight of the day was a free guided whale-watching walk to Marks Park Headland by marine mammal expert guide Dr Michelle Blewitt. ORCA volunteers were doing their whale census and they found 17 whales on the day – with over 670 having been counted since May. If you see a whale this season, you can become part of the Whale Tweeting club and give everyone an alert as to where you have just seen them http://twitter.com/wildaboutwhales.

** The IWC fails to protect Humpbacks.

Even though the IWC meeting voted not to resume full-on commercial whaling (thankfully!!) it did give Greenland an annual quota of 9 Humpback whales for the next five years - This is the first time since the commercial moratorium that the IWC has granted a new proposal to kill Humpback whales. “We have failed the Humpbacks” said Mick McIntyre reporting from the meeting in Agadir, Morocco. “This should never have been allowed to happen,” he said. “Humpback whales are an iconic species and we needed to do more to protect them,” he said. “This sets a terrible precedent for the IWC” he added.

Who knows - our Humpbacks could be next!!