September 28, 2019

Friends, our action call campaign addressed to VNIRO and TINRO worked quickly!
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Today, the process of releasing a new group of beluga whales by VNIRO has begun. A total of 14 animals will be released, for which 38.5 million rubles will be paid to four capture companies.
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September 26, 2019 VNIRO posted 4 purchases on the government procurement website “Supply of animals for the purpose of conducting research on the behavior and migration of killer whales and beluga whales for the needs of the Federal State Budget Scientific Institution VNIRO”. Purchasing links:
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1. http://zakupki.gov.ru/…/pub…/purchase/info/common-info.html…
2. http://zakupki.gov.ru/…/pub…/purchase/info/common-info.html…
3. http://zakupki.gov.ru/…/pub…/purchase/info/common-info.html…
4. http://zakupki.gov.ru/…/pub…/purchase/info/common-info.html…
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The contract for the supply of live whales between VNIRO and the four capture companies can also be downloaded on the Sakhalin Environmental Watch website:

https://ecosakh.ru/…/09/27/dogovora-na-postavku-beluh-ot-26… 
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According to the agreements, live animals are supplied for research work on the behavior and migration of released killer whales and beluga whales, for which re-adaptation measures were carried out in Srednyaya Bay, after installation of satellite tags that was done by the Customer (VNIRO).
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At 10:40 am the loading of beluga whales on the “Vladimir Safonov” ship owned by VNIRO began. The movement of the vessel can be freely monitored through the industry monitoring system and independent servers showing the movement of vessels, such as marinetraffic.com.
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The enclosure with belugas was separated from the main enclosures of the whale jail and towed by a motor boat to a distance of about 600 meters from the ship. At 11:00am, the enclosure was attached to the ship; the animals began to be loaded onto the ship itself.
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Afalina LLC supplies 1 individual beluga whale (2 750 000 rubles ), White Whale LLC – 7 individuals (19 250 000 rubles), Oceanarium DV LLC – 3 beluga whales (8 250 000 rubles), LLC Sochi Dolphinarium ”- 3 belugas (8,250,000 rubles).
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We are happy that new group of belugas are finally being released, but still have several questions.
– Why has this method of transport was not been used before? Instead, VNIRO claimed that cetaceans should not be transported on ships, because they would be sick and would choke in the water from seasickness.
– Transportation on a ship allows you to take out much more than 14 belugas – why is their number so limited?
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There are more questions, of course, but so far the main thing is that all belugas should be released as soon as possible! Please keep calling and sending messages to VNIRO AND TINRO as we asked in the previous posts.