Three orca calves dead in a year. It doesn’t have to be this way.

 

DONATE J60, January 2024. L128, December 2024. And now, J61 – New Years Day, 2025. These three young orca calves tragically perished over the last year. The last time researchers saw L128, the poor baby was severely emaciated. An adult orca, Moonlight, was jiggling the calf’s body in attempts to revive them. And J61 and her mother, Tahlequah, have captured the world’s attention – Tahlequah carried her daughter’s body for 11 days in a heartbreaking display of grief. While orcas are left mourning these horrific losses, Donald Trump is already enabling Big Oil to “drill, baby, drill.” Big Oil has big plans to develop even more deadly projects that would bring more oil to orca habitats – threatening to wipe them out forever. Today, in honor of World Whale Day, Friends of the Earth is committed to stopping Big Polluters and honoring the plight of the last 73 Southern Resident orcas. We’ve set a $45,000 fundraising goal to fight Big Oil and the shipping industry and protect orcas, our oceans, the people who rely on them, and our only Earth – and we’re counting on your support to get there. Lack of food. Rampant pollution. Direct collisions with ocean vessels. Orcas face a host of challenges to their survival – and now, things could get worse. A massive new shipping terminal is in the works. The Roberts Bank T2 Terminal would dramatically increase ship traffic throughout orca habitat, migration routes and critical feeding areas. That means an unbearable burden of underwater noise pollution. The noise would drown out orcas’ sonar signals and disrupt their ability to hunt and communicate with one another. The result could be deadly collisions with speeding ships, or extreme difficulty finding the scarce Chinook salmon they count on as their primary food source! Big Oil has proven that it cannot be trusted to put precious animals and even people above short-term profits. If implemented, its deadly projects would deal a massive blow to people living nearby. Families and tourists who used to love watching orcas and marine life thrive could instead see emaciated sea creatures floating in the water. Fishers who rely on clean waters to make a living could be seeing fewer and fewer healthy fish in the ocean and entire livelihoods would be destroyed. This isn’t the world you and I want to live in. That’s why Friends of the Earth set an urgent goal to raise $45,000 in honor of World Whale Day. We’re fighting to achieve real progress even with oil “dictator” Donald Trump in the White House. That means increasing local protections for Southern Resident orcas and stopping these projects before the damage to oceans and communities is irreversible. But we rely on membership support from activists like you to power our fight to protect orcas, people, and our planet. Please, Tony: orcas are counting on you to be their voice. We’re fighting with everything we can to protect the last Southern Resident orcas and the planet. Help fund our work with a $50 World Whale Day donation now. If you've saved payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately: Donate $50 immediately Donate $100 immediately Donate $250 immediately Donate another amount Standing with you, Marcie Keever Oceans & vessels program director, Friends of the Earth Contact Us Friends of the Earth U.S. Washington, D.C. | Berkeley, CA PO Box 7010 Merrifield, VA 22116-7010 1-877-843-8687 Contact us   Learn More www.foe.org/news www.foe.org/about-us www.foeaction.org