For the last 10 years, IUCN has been working with Sakhalin Energy– an oil and gas company with Gazprom, Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi as shareholders – and other actors to ensure the long-term conservation of these cetaceans. The feeding areas near Sakhalin – a region with large offshore oil and gas deposits, and active exploitation of other natural resources – are used by the western gray whales every summer and are vital for the maintenance of the population.
"The population of Western Gray whales has been driven to very low numbers by commercial whaling,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Programme. “It is particularly disturbing to learn that commercial salmon fishing is also now threatening the life of these whales which are included both in theIUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM and the Russian Red Data Book."
