18
April 2008 - International — He may be the
most famous humpback whale in the world
but Mister Splashy Pants has lots of less
famous friends too, all of them named by
our supporters around the world.
As part of The Great
Whale Trail (GWT), we collaborated with
scientists working on humpback whales in
the South Pacific. With financial support
from Greenpeace, humpback whales were tagged
by the Cook Islands Center for Cetacean
Research and Conservation and Opération
Cétacés (New Caledonia).
With the scientists
encouragement, we asked our supporters to
help name the tagged whales. The most famous
of them is undoubtedly Mister Splashy Pants,
who came out on top of our online whale
name poll.
Other winners from the
poll that are now the proud names of humpbacks
in the South Pacific are, Humphrey, Aiko,
Libertad, Mira, Kaimana, Aurora, Shanti,
Amal and Manami.
Some of our supporters
in Japan also named a couple of whales with
composer Ryuichi Sakamoto naming a whale
Neo after his son and Japanese rock guitarist
Sugizo naming a whale Lyra after being inspired
to protect the environment after the birth
of his daughter.
One more whale was named
after a school in the Cook Islands after
the children of the school had tried to
save a stranded whale just months before
the humpbacks were tagged. The whale was
not a humpback whale but a Cuviers beaked
whale which had stranded itself on the beach
opposite the Ngatangiia school.
The whale died shortly
after it was discovered but became the subject
of an en masse lesson for the kids who watched
over it all day in utter amazement. The
children were so moved by the experience
that they named the whale Kakera, meaning
'the rising sun', which is also the name
of the land that the school is on.
In honour of the whale
who died and the children who tried to save
it, there is now a humpback whale swimming
around in the South Pacific named Kakera.
Another whale was named
by the readers of the Daily Telegraph, an
Australian newspaper. The name they choose
was Iluka, an Australian Aboriginal word
meaning 'near the sea'.
With 5 whales left to
name we turned to our most ardent supporters,
the whale defenders.
Joe Wu from Hong Kong
named a whale Siu King meaning 'smiling
whale' in Cantonese.
Jenni Barrett from Ireland
named a whale SIDD after the first name
initials of the three Irish crew members
onboard the Esperanza (Sara Holden, Dave
Walsh and Dave McEvitt ) and one honorary
Irish citizen (Irene Berg - from Sweden).
Whitney from USA named
a whale Maggie Mae partly after her grandmother,
aged 83, who is called Margaret (sometimes
Maggie) and partly after the Rod Stewart
song of the same name.
Varga Åskvigg
from Sweden named a whale Varuna after the
Vedic (Hindu) sea God, the protector of
the sea and sea life.
Chloé Banville
from Canada named a whale Anaïs which
means grace in Hebrew.
A big thank you to all
the people who participated in The Great
Whale Trail. With your help, we are another
step closer to ending whaling in the Southern
Ocean Whale Sanctuary for good.
