Critical Times

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By Laura Burgoin | February 25, 2008

PATRICK Bonello has a million supporters in his campaign to stop whaling.

Mr Bonello’s online anti-whaling petition reached seven figures on Saturday, exactly two years after it was started up the Whales Revenge website in 2006.

After collecting signatures from all over the world, the millionth came from a man in Warrnambool, in western Victoria, where whale watching is a major aspect of the town’s tourism industry.

Mr Bonello plans to present the petition to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Hoping to personally hand it to Kevin Rudd, Mr Bonello will present the petition in an environmentally friendly CD form.

He said he would present it to the Japanese government if necessary, but his aim was to display a united show of force to pressure the Australian government into more action.

“Rather than observing from a protester ship, naval vessels could be used to stop Japanese whaling in our territory,” Mr Bonello said.peCirculating through emails and now linked to Google, Mr Bonello’s website includes a space invaders style game called Whales Revenge as well as a petition against whale slaughtering.

“The idea is to play the game by sinking whaling ships and saving whales,” Mr Bonello said.

Through this, Mr Bonello aims to generate interest and raise awareness about illegal whaling in Australian waters.

“The gimmick behind the idea was to play the game, sign the petition and then send it to your friends,” he said.

Feeling powerless against illegal whaling, Mr Bonello created the website from his home in Ballan, west of Melbourne, as a global outreach to others who shared his values.

“I work from home, basically I’m a one man show working from my home office in country Victoria,” he said.

The website continues to generate interest worldwide, but has been most successful in Australia.

“We’re saying that basically what Japan is doing is wrong, ethically, morally and it’s barbaric, and they’re doing it out here in Australian waters,” he said.

Media coverage of anti-whaling protests has helped publicise Whales Revenge.

“In December last year when we had a lot of media coverage on that one particular day we had 26,000 people who signed the petition,” Mr Bonello said.

“Two weeks ago, it was down to 1,000 a day.”

While Whales Revenge has reached its one million signature target, Mr Bonello will keep the website going, setting his sights on the 10 million mark.

“We’ll keep the petition going, a petition is organic, it’s constantly growing” he said.