551 Project

If you know someone who has accomplished outstanding work with wildlife or domestic animals, come forward and nominate them for an IFAW Animal Action Week award.

Nominating someone is easy, just write to IFAW and tell us about your nominee’s work with animals, along with addresses and daytime phone numbers for both you and the person you have nominated.

You can mail your nomination letter to IFAW Action Awards, 8 Belmore Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, or, email info-au@ifaw.org with IFAW Action Awards in the subject.

 Nominations must be received by 5pm on Friday 5 September 2008.

A day for celebrations my fair whale tail friends, today we reached the grand total of 551 whale tail photos!

Thank you everyone that has contributed a photo but let’s not stop here, we want MORE so the Big Book is well… BIG!

Tell your friends and family about Project 551, join our Facebook Group or become our friend on MySpace, spread the word and lets see how many photos we can get.

You may have noticed a change in our appearance over the weekend and that’s because the busy people at Red Ant and Republic Of Everyone  have been busy giving us a face lift.

Things are really gearing up for the creation of The Big Book to present to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and we want the Australian Government to know how many people are right behind them in an effort to protect whales.

We’ve got the celebs but what we really want is you! Send your photo in now to be a part of The Big Book and maybe even a TVC for Project 551.

 It’s time the whale hunt was put on ice.

I finally got the Project 551 MySpace page happening - www.myspace.com/project551.

Not having created one of the swooshy pages with pics etc. I thought how hard can it be, even a teenager can do it? Yes, well after many hours and much frustration I enlisted the help of a teenager (thanks Annie) and it’s finally there so… be my friend and spread the word!

We recently got an email from our office in The Netherlands, looks like Project 551 is going international.

  
          

For anyone who couldn’t get down to the Changing Colours Movement event in Bondi, there is an excellent roundup  of the day on Mojada’s MySpace page, along with some fantastic photos by Rae Threnoworth.

Looking forward to the next one guys. 

The spotlight was on Project 551 at the Changing Colours Movement (led by Bondi band Mojada) event to raise awareness of whaling on Sunday 22 June - the eve of the 60th International Whaling Commission meeting. 

The North Bondi RSL was packed to the rafters with people who care about the state of the oceans and want whaling stopped for good.  Despite the serious undercurrent of the whaling issue, guest speakers and talented musicians gave the day an uplifting feeling.  Despite the fact people were talking about how horrific whaling is there was a real sense of unity and hope that if enough people voice their opposition and keep urging the Australian Government to do everything it can to stop whaling then we will succeed.

During the gig Mojada kindly projected the Project 551 images on the screen up on stage.  The changing and extremely diverse faces provided an inspiring and moving backdrop for some of Australia’s most talented musicians. 

We left the event with more photos to add to the project, including those of Underbelly star, Gyton Grantley, and McLeod’s Daughters’ Aaron Jeffries, not to mention more ‘everyday’ Aussies keen to put their faces to the campaign to stop whaling.

More photos to come…

Need a new desktop picture? The first photo mosaic from the collection is now available with the promise of more to come. 

1024×768 | 1280×800 | 1600×1200 | 1900×1400

14 June 2008 is Australia’s first National Whale Day and 25 communities around Australia have come together in celebration of cetaceans! From Marion Bay in Tassie to Hervey Bay in Qld, Albany to Exmouth in WA - the diversity and number of events just shows how valuable whales are to Australians and that we are united in our commitment to protect them.

At the opening event in Sydney IFAW launched Project 551 - a fascinating photographic project illustrating the breadth of support across Australia for whale conservation. Project 551 features portraits of Australians, including some familiar faces, making a whale tail with their hands. The photos have been taken by some of Australia’s best photographers.