FOR NEARLY 20 years, most of my working hours have been spent trying to identify and protect habitats in the sea for whales, dolphins and other marine life. For me, this work started even earlier, with efforts in the 1980s to protect the resting areas and rubbing beaches of orcas, or killer whales, off northern Vancouver Island, in the North Pacific. In the company of fellow researchers and conservationists, I spent 10 summers with several pods, or family groups, of killer whales, and we came to know their habits and favorite habitats. When MacMillan Bloedel Ltd., then Canada’s largest logging company, announced that it was going to boom logs in the precise location where most of the orcas gathered, we put aside our day-to-day work to let the world know what was about to happen. We succeeded in protecting a piece of orca habitat at Robson Bight. Later, it became clear that we should have demanded a much larger area, with stronger management provisions. Back then, we weren’t thinking big enough.
Our efforts to protect whale and dolphin habitat have since expanded to every sea, from the Mediterranean to the great Ross Sea in Antarctica. In addition to conservation campaigns, I have commissioned and participated in research projects and expeditions, helped produce documentary films, engaged in interviews with video and print journalists and linked up with two round-the-world sailing races to bring attention to the need for marine habitat protection. I have delivered two editions of Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises (2005 and 2011), along with numerous lectures, blogs, tweets and articles to advance the work of creating and implementing effective “homes for whales and dolphins.” This work is still in its infancy.
