Endangered Whales

“ The story of the whale is so remarkable, that were there not so many witnesses, I would not venture to tell it, lest I be accused of exaggeration.”

The debate surrounding Makah whaling is a heated one to say the least. There are valid points on both sides of the argument, but there is one side I find to be more valid once the facts have been looked at. I will examine and present my findings regarding past and current laws and regulations related to whaling, types of whaling, other countries that take an active part in whaling (and why), as well as the Makah culture – both past and present. In this paper I will argue why the Makah should not be allowed to resume whaling, as it is unnecessary and could potentially put the grey whale species back on the endangered list.

I believe that the Makah Indians should be granted the wavier to continue to hunt whales. Particularly, since the U.S Government signed the Neah Bay Treaty in 1855 with the Makah people, stating that it was OK for the Makah Indians to continue to hunt for fish, seals, whales, in exchange for 500 acre of their ancestral land. I feel it is only fair for the U.S government to keep their word and continue to let them hunt. In addition, the Gray Whale population has risen tremendously since 1926 and hunting 5 whales per year will not cause anymore damage. It is also very apparent that the Makah people care about the whales and don't view them as just an animal to kill because they volunteered to momentarily end their whale hunting in order to save the species when the whale species nearly went extinct. In conclusion, no part of the whale is wasted, the Makah people find uses for all parts of the whale.

“… building a tank the size of Rhode Island wouldn’t be large enough for a six-ton male killer whale such as Tilikum, an animal capable of swimming 100 miles a day,” states an anonymous whale expert. Whales have been in captivity since 1861 when P.T. Barnum displayed the first live whale that was captured in Canada. However, Barnum had no idea how to care for the mammal and it died after only a week in captivity. (Animal Legal and Historical Center, 2014) Being up close with killer whales could give us some clues about how they interact with each other, including physical behavior, their dialect, and how their pods work together as a family unit. However, what we are finding is that whales who belong in the wild are suffering in

The parties involved in this matter are the members of the tribe, both for and against the decision, the whales, the environmentalists, the courts that will settle the lawsuits and future generations that might be affected by any decision in regards to the impact on the whales sustainability. The decision at stake here is whether it is moral to revoke the ban and recent tradition,

Did you know that roughly three million whales were slaughtered in the twentieth century alone? Or that there are only around four hundred North Atlantic right whales alive today because they never fully recovered from being hunted? These whales are known as “right” whales because they are large and slow, with thick blubber that yields lots of oil plus they remain afloat after they've been killed, this simplifies the whole hunting process for everyone . Furthermore, the hunters got more money for less work. I believe that whaling is a vile and pointless thing to do to such beautiful creatures and that the International Whaling Commission should look further into the use of whales for research.

A committee from an organization such as the WTO may be a good starting point for deciding who should participate in the negotiations for promoting the whale ban. Because an issue this complex and involved needs to have negotiations on who will be participating in the negotiations. The villagers are much more limited on the resources they have for such negotiations. It is fortunate that the nations of Norway and Japan appear to be aligned with the villagers so that additional resources are there to promote the values of that culture. And since the impact of the whaling ban is so large on these local cultures, the negotiating parameters should be weighted to their side in some manner to prevent a large number of people with little to lose out-weighing the small number of people who have everything to lose. But keep in mind, these weights cannot be determined without accurate (unbiased) and timely data on the impact to the environment and the

Holding killer whales in captivity is a harmful problem to the mammal that requires action from both the government and the public.

Did you know that in the last 50 years over two million whales have been killed? The United States views whaling very differently than Japan does. It is a complicated and controversial topic. Many people have opinions about whale hunting. However, everyone should know both sides of the whale hunting issues before they act on the issue. To start out I am going to tell you a little about whaling. The first whale hunters were in the prehistoric times. At first they would just kill and eat beached whales. That became such a habit that they started hunting them. Most whale hunters use harpoons, guns, lances, or bombs that blow up inside the whale. They use catcher boats, or kayaks. In 1925, whalers developed

In my opinion, by doing this it would balance both whale hunting and whale watching and I do not feel people then would have any problem because they know that whale hunting cannot completely stop as so many people would lose their jobs but this would at least make it better for people who like whale watching. By limiting the amount of whale hunting, owners of fin whaling company like Kristjan Loftsson might lose some profit on the year but at least no one will be against them if they do not over hunt the whales. As Kristjan Loftsson believes “the world has wrongly turned against him”, just shows that he does think of other people’s opinions on whale hunting and if they set a quota to a reasonable number then people won’t have a problem and he would not think that the world is against him as he thinks now. People all around the world will not question the owners and they will still enjoy watching the whales for wild

In his article, “Whale Mining, Whale Saving,” Sidney Holt states, “saving the whales is for millions of people a crucial test of their political ability to halt environmental destruction”(Holt 1985). In a world where environmental issues are often so vast that solving them seems impossible, it is rare to encounter a regime which successfully addresses these problems. If we judge a regime’s effectiveness by its ability to change the behavior of its members and possibly even encourage others to join, then the whaling regime was in fact quite effective. The significant decrease in commercial whaling brought about by the International Whaling Commission (IWC)’s 1982 moratorium is proof in itself of the

Hunting whales was not on an industrial scale until the 1890’s, and continued until the International Whaling Commission took effect in 1986. The article refers to the unsustainability of whaling commercially. The number of whales in our oceans has been rapidly reducing in the years that humans have had access to commercial whaling ships. Hunting an endangered species is highly unethical, because we could, within a generation or two, see the fall of the largest beings alive today. The whales in our oceans belong to the whole world and not just to Japan and Norway. Even with the restrictions by the IWC, Japan still continues for “Scientific Research”. Scientific Research has recently been deemed illegal in the Arctic water, but they have completely disregarded all sanctions put against them to try and stop the unethical whaling.

Known for being the main attraction at SeaWorld, whales are often admired by tourists and locals. Some may call whales fish, but they aren’t, whales are considered mammals due to the fact that they breathe air. They’re apart of the group called Cetaceans which also includes dolphins and porpoises and they can be found throughout many oceans. We hardly shed light on commercial whaling because it doesn’t seem to affect us as humans; however, knowing that we could be the solution to this problem may change many views on this horrid topic.

Commercial whaling is a serious world issue that has always been difficult for those who are in support and those who are against it. Each group defends their side with convincing arguments. Morally, whaling is wrong, but do the reasons for whaling outweigh the reasons to cease the primitive hunts? By studying the effects of whaling,realizing how culture has changed over time, and taking note of the money that would be saved, it can clearly be seen that there is no longer a current need for whaling to continue. Efforts have been made to try to stop whaling, but with no help from any authoritative figure,nothing has been done to regulate the whaling. The famous sea shepherd, known for its strikes against whaling, can even be seen on

Whaling is defined as hunting and killing of whales by humans for resources, mainly meat, blubber and baleen (whalebone) obtained from whales. These resources are then sold for commercial purposes and thus, whaling has become economical important for centuries (Joanne 2007; The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia 2007). Scientific whaling is conducted by hunting whales for research purposes and further analysis to study on whale’s behaviour, characteristics and distribution (Joanne 2007). Commercial whaling is a controversial whaling practice that exploits whale products for trade and profit. Recently, Japan, Norway and Iceland are the major contributors of commercial whaling and deeply support any other whaling activities (Joanne 2007). Moratorium on commercial whaling 1986 is a global ban of hunting whales for commercial purposes, implemented by International Whaling Commission (IWC). Under Article VIII, unlimited scientific research is permitted but sufficient data and analysis are required by Science Committee set up by IWC (Papastavrou 2006).