Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Howard Garrett, Derek Matthews, Janine Bandcroft Aug. 5, 2013

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

Human/Whale interaction has a perfidious history here. Certainly, the indigenous populations hunted the whales, but since their arrival the white whalers, fishers, and exhibitionists have killed uncounted numbers in an orgy of greed and stupidity.

Of all the many species of cetaceans, both native and migrating through these waters, none has fired the imagination, nor fueled the fears of the newcomers like the "Killer Whale." Orcinus orca, or simply Orca, is the dazzlingly adept ocean carnivore hunter that survives yet both the ignorant malice and ill-executed good intentions of human intervention in the Salish Sea.

But, their continued survival is no sure thing.

Listen. Hear.


Howard Garrett is Board president and co-founder of the Orca Network, a Washington State based organization dedicated to the protection of wild Orca, and repatriation of captured whales.

Whether the burgeoning whale-watching industry, or the belated recognition of the Orca’s perilous proximity to extinction by marine agencies on both sides of the border, people are beginning to talk up the survival and well-being of local Orca populations.

Howard Garrett in the first half.

And; pollution, habitat degradation, causal predation, and the immense ignorance of the human animal is too responsible for the near extinction of another of nature's totemic species. The common Swallow is less so today. In fact, it is fast becoming more than uncommon, it is flirting with extinction. The bird that has featured in song and adorned human culture the world over could soon become just a memory; and if it should come to pass, it is we who will carry the mantle of blame.

Derek Matthews is Director of the Vancouver Avian Research Centre and is a passionate ornithologist, avian researcher, conservationist, and Master bird bander. He is reaching out to Vancouverites, and all city dwellers in North America, to begin now mitigation efforts to help save the Swallow before it's too late.

Derek Matthews needing more than a wing and a prayer for urban bird populations in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of the coming week for the streets of our city and beyond. But first, Howard Garrett and harrowing straits for the Orca of, and transiting the Salish Sea.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

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