As gray whales face new threats along the Baja Californian coast in the US, their rarer cousins in the Western Pacific are facing greater peril, owing to a consortium of profit-hungry Japanese and western oil companies, in collusion with the Russian government. The Western Pacific's 200 surviving gray whales migrate through the Sea of Japan to feed in the shallow waters off Russia's Sakhalin Island. But the area has been slated for massive oil and gas drilling. Stormy winter seas, coupled with the frequent earthquakes which this oil-rich region is prone to, could lead to serious oil spills. In case these calamitites really occur, they could possibly wipe out the food supply these whales depend on. If a spill occurs during the whales summer sojourn, it could spell doom for them as well.
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