A lot has happened since the last newsletter... to begin with, we've more than doubled the number of petitions, the count is currently at 4409! Thanks everyone!

Surfers for Cetaceans, the group behind the Visual Petition, has been very busy in the past months, gearing up for the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Chile in June 2008. We will be printing out all of the visual petitions onto 3 huge banners, to be presented to the IWC delegates and the international media in protest of the dolphin and whale killing. This trip has evolved into a month-long journey, with the title "El Mar, Mi Alma" - the ocean, my soul. For more information, keep reading below.

The other big news is that Surfers for Cetaceans is now a registered non-profit organisation... so for those of you who have emailed wanting to donate to us, you can now do this from a button on the top right of the VP site. A big thanks to David James from Tassie for being the first to donate! We really appreciate your support.

Surfers for Cetaceans, joined by an international crew of waveriders, celebrities, musicians and artists, plan to present the Visual Petition at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) conference in Santiago-Chile June 2008.  The group will also be followed closely by two separate film crews, documenting our story for worldwide distribution.

To muster a groundswell of support in Chile, S4C will undertake an intensive tour of the coastline, visiting  towns to meet with other surfers, Indigenous people, university groups, authorities, and the wider community to share knowledge on whale and marine conservation. There will also be a number of creative cultural events as well as discussions on local environmental issues.

The tour will be carried out in the spirit of unity and understanding, in the hope that the sharing of environmental and cultural values will generate publicity and movement towards peaceful protest and celebration at the IWC on behalf of the whales and dolphins.

Surfers for Cetaceans invites you to become part of this effort, by letting other people know about the tour, or even joining the tour itself... Our mission is to put an end to the killing of marine mammals and the degradation of our oceans.

We've made a new page on the Visual Petition site - the Petition Wall, where you can see all of the petition photos on one page... and yes.. it takes a while to load! The effect is great... quite overwhelming actually.. but we do ask that you don't keep this page loading unless you are actually looking at the petitions.. it takes up a lot of bandwidth! Enjoy!

View the Petition Wall here

For those of you who are in the VP Competition for the Trip to Chile, please make sure you upload all of the petition photos you have well before the end of the competition. We do not want the server to be overloaded right before the competition closes, so if you have some petitions you haven't uploaded, now is the time! We will not be held responsible if the server is overloaded on the last day and you are unable to upload petitions.

Petition photos should be around 2mg, which is usually a 'medium resolution' setting on your digital camera. Anything larger than 3mg may cause "memory" errors. Also, it is quicker for you to upload smaller files. Petition photos will be printed out on the banners at around 10cm on the longest side and at 300dpi. We have also increased the server space by 500%, so for those of you who ran into server space errors when uploading, this should no longer be a problem.

Click here to upload Petition Photos

Excerpt from article by Andrew C. Revkin, NY Times

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society claimed its founder, Paul Watson, was hit by a bullet fired from a Japanese whaling vessel on Friday 7th March. The whalers denied any shots were fired. Mr. Watson holds the bullet and a bent badge. (Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Both sides in the war over whaling intensified tactics and public-relations efforts. Japan's subsidized whaling fleet and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society traded video and photo releases showing salvos of flash grenades and liquid stink bombs tossed ship to ship near Antarctica — as well as charges over whether a bullet struck the leader of the anti-whaling campaign... Read full article >

Whales Revenge campaigned to gather 1 million signatures for a petition to stop whaling, and will also be presenting their petition at the IWC meeting this year. More names will continue to be added.  The campaign ends when the killing of whales stops.

This site also has a great game for the kids.. or for the young at heart, where the whales get to fight back!!

Click here to go to Whales Revenge

Excerpt from article in www.theage.com.au

Whale and dolphin watching is one of the fastest growing industries in the Pacific, injecting millions of dollars into local economies, a new report shows.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) report shows whale watching is worth $23 million a year to small Pacific nations.

The number of people in the region watching the marine mammals has jumped an average 45 per cent each year.

There were just 10,309 whale and dolphin watchers in Pacific island nations in 1998, but that figure had risen to 110,716 in 2005.

The figures released today exclude Australian and New Zealand data, although earlier research showed about 1.6 million people watch whales and dolphins in Australia annually, in an industry worth about $273 million each year.

Former New Zealand minister and International Whaling Commission (IWC) delegate Jim McClay (on right in photo) opened the IFAW meeting today in Auckland.

He said each humpback whale which visited Tonga was worth about million (.1 million) to the local economy during a 15-year period and urged Japan to stop hunting the mammals.

"Whales are worth more alive than dead," he said... Read full article >

Excerpt from article by Martin Fackler in the NY Times

TAIJI, Japan — For years, Western activists have traveled to this remote port to protest the annual dolphin drive. And for years, local fishermen have ignored them, herding the animals into a small cove and slashing them until the tide flows red. But now, a new menace may succeed where the activists have failed: mercury.

This is an old seafaring town, Japan’s version of Nantucket long ago. The 3,500 residents on this majestic stretch of rocky coastline are fiercely proud of their centuries-old tradition of hunting dolphins and whales.

Dolphin meat is a local delicacy, served raw as sashimi or boiled with soy sauce. People here are used to the international scorn that accompanies the dolphin hunt and have closed ranks in the face of rising outrage — until now.

Last June, laboratory tests showed high levels of mercury in dolphin and pilot whale, a small whale that resembles a dolphin, that were caught and sold here. Schools stopped serving pilot whale meat for lunch, and some local markets removed it as well as dolphin from their shelves.

The scare has divided the community. Most local officials and the fishermen’s union insist that the mercury danger is overblown, while some others have begun to question a tradition... Read full article >

Well, since we're a couple of months behind, we thought we'd pick two photos.. there have been so many awesome submissions!

Matt Dakya from the USA sent in this excellent shot - dude - how did you do that??

And the bomb for this newsletter... Michael Franti... you legend! Thanks for joining our petition.

If you wish to nominate a photo of the month, please send the number of your nominated photo to: info@visualpetition.com and the reason why you think this photo should be nominated.

That's it for now folks.. Keep those petitions rolling in.. let everyone know that if they want their petition to be printed on the Visual Petition Banner for the IWC Meeting and the Chile Tour, they need to get them in before late May. Aloha!