Oceana
Art has a pivotal role in ocean advocacy and conservation. Visual language speaks beyond dialects and cultures, to unite communities in the scientific literacy necessary for existence with nature in mind. Richard Dolan teamed up with non-profit Whale and Dolphin Conservation to enrich education programs with unique models and resources, including these sculptures of the North Atlantic Right whale.
An endangered species with less than 99 breeding females left in the population, the creature once commercially harvested for oil is vulnerable to modern threats such as vessel traffic and entrapment in fishing gear.
Climate change will cause shifts of distribution of plankton in the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fundy, and in this century the whales may alter their migration to seek food much further north. The NARW is a species seldom encountered and little understood by the public, but these sculptures can serve as avatars for denizens in need of empathy regarding policy and resource management.
COLLECTION OF WHALE AND DOLPHIN CONSERVATION