13-07-05 Another starved grey whale cub was found dead in Russia’s Far East region of Primorye. The discovery reinforced local environmentalist’s suspicions that giant oil projects off the nearby Sakhalin Island could pose a danger to the grey whale species.
The scientists in the Pacific Fish Industry Research Centre, after conducting a thorough investigation of the whale cub, concluded that it had died of starvation, but the youngster should have still been fed by its mother.

Earlier this year another young whale died after getting tangled in fishnets off the Japanese coast.
“The massive death of whales, which we can observe at this moment, allows us to suppose a repeat of 2000, when starved whales were first noticed,” announced the WWF’s Far East division. “A year before then, in 1999, the Sakhalin Energy company set up its first oil extraction platform close to the whales’ feeding grounds, and the whales were forced to leave their only feeding ground without having replenished their fat reserves necessary for long migration and the birth and growth of cubs,” it added.

Environmentalists cite the development of oil and gas industries near Sakhalin as the cause of the deaths of the endangered grey whale species.
Experts predict that the death of at least one female grey whale a year over the next three years would wipe out the species altogether.