02-07-04 The population of grey whales, which inhabit in summer the coastal waters of Sakhalin, in the area of the Molikpak oil platform, has increased by eleven calves.
This was established by American and Russian scientists, studying the life of these ocean giants, whose habitation area was invaded by oil workers. The whale calves were spotted from the platform and from the Okha tanker, US Doctor of Biology Lizan Aerts told.

The shoal of forty whales usually migrates to the Korean Peninsula in the winter and then comes back to Sakhalin in the summer. Extraction of oil began in that region in 1999 and ecologists were concerned about the fate of the sea giants. It was also claimed that the whales had lost weight, which usually reaches sixty tons.
Experts believe the birth of eleven whale calves proves that the oil platform is not dangerous for them, although it stands on the Piltum-Astokh oil and gas deposit, a feeding ground of grey whales.