World Whale Conference

The WhaleFest mission, begun in 2012, to bring organisations and companies together into a global alliance for whales and dolphins, pressed the ‘GO’ button in Massachusetts USA on 6th and 7th November 2013.

A team from WhaleFest ran the World Whale Conference and International Whale Watching Conference, as the inaugural meeting of the newly formed World Cetacean Alliance, which had been launched earlier that year on World Oceans Day, 8th June.

The lineup for the conference was an impressive who’s who list of cetacean experts and advocates including Bill Rossiter (Cetacean Society International), John Fanshawe (BirdLife International), Michael Fishbach (The Great Whale Conservancy); Sami Mhenni (Houtiyat)Barbara Maas (Nabu International); Dr. Naomi Rose (Animal Welfare Institute); Howard Garrett (Orca Network) and Dr. Ingrid Visser (Orca Research Trust).

David Kirby, author of Death at SeaWorld, gave the keynote address, and the conference also featured a special screening of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s powerful documentary Blackfish in the Gloucester Cinema.

Whale watch companies and attendees came from across North America, Europe and beyond and it was our first live-streamed event.