Last month I was one of more than 100 volunteers who attended one of three Whale Stranding Workshops held by the Australian Dolphin Research Foundation. Mike Bossley was in charge of the workshop and the speaker was Sheryl Gibney from NZ’s Project Jonah. We saw slides, watched videos and took notes of Sheryl’s talk.
After a lunch break we went to Snowden’s Beach on the banks of the Port River. Here we practised raising an inflatable Pilot Whale onto inflatable pontoons. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and Channel 9 filmed our antics. They also interviewed Sheryl who, incidentally, autographed my whale book for me. A couple of the volunteers were also interviewed. Although I was not interviewed myself, I did speak to the reporter. I told her that the group needed sponsorship to raise several thousand dollars to be able to purchase the specialist equipment that we had been training with.
We featured on the Channel 9 news that night and then the newsreader, Georgina Thomas, mentioned our need for sponsorship. Ken Cunningham said that he hoped a business could help us. It appeared that my talk to the reporter, Rosemary Hamilton, had been worthwhile. Not yet satisfied though, I rang Messenger Newspapers to arrange a report along the same lines. Reporter Amanda Hodge obliged by writing about the successful workshop and our call for sponsorship in the Portside Messenger.
Many thanks then to:- Channel 9’s Rosemary Hamilton, Georgina Thomas & Ken Cunningham, Messenger’s Amanda Hodge and Sheryl Gibney from Project Jonah.