Why Commercial Whaling Should Be Banned

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.

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

Whaling by definition, is the hunting and killing of whales for their meat, blubber and oil. The whaling industry has been around since the 11th century, when the Basques started trading products from North Atlantic right whales (Whaling FAQs). Today, the demand for whale meat may be declining, however we cannot be positive that whale populations can survive as they now face other threats (Whaling).

The article “Iceland Tourism Courts Controversy with Whale-Hunting Trips”, written by Tom Mackenzie and Ed Kiernan talks about how one of the richest men in Iceland, Kristjan Loftsson owns the only commercial fin whaling company in the world. I believe there is room for both whale hunting and whale watching as long as whale hunting is kept limited. There should be a tracking system where each company should be given the annual quota and if they go over, penalize them with a charge. Whale watching is important because as Masson from the article said, “I think 99 percent of the tourists who come to Iceland, they are coming here to experience wild nature at its best”. People like watching whales because of wild nature and they enjoy watching them in the water. The reason

1. The dispute was motivated, to a small extent, by the genuine desire to protect the Canadian culture. That is because the government felt that the magazine companies which had a long history covering local news and employed a long chain of Canadians, couldn't be allowed to collapse. It would mean the disappearance and extinction of what some Canadians at, the, time, identified with.

According to Greenpeace, “up to 80% of [Japanese] respondents disagreed with whaling on the high seas. And 85% said they did not know endangered species were being hunted by Japanese ships in the Antarctic Ocean”(Ganderton, 2014). More than that, both Japan and Norway have significantly declining sales of whale meat. The impact of whaling on small fishing villages might impact my opinion on this issue, but I don’t think the impact is significant enough to warrant whaling, especially when, for example in Norway, the government has to subsidize the whaling industry because they can’t sell enough meat to

The increase in the fishing industry could be due to any number of things such as the weather, the time of year, or even the lack of a whale’s presence. It does not suggest that the whales are consuming the fish or that they are depleting important fish populations. Also, it has been proven that commercial whaling does impact the whaling industries in pro whaling countries. If money is the end goal for some of these countries they could just adopt the whale watching industry rather than commercial whaling because in the end, due to conservation movements, it will probably be making more money. If Japan wants to continue whaling under scientific research pretenses, then I’m sure they can find more humane and less invasive ways to collect data such as studying beached or already dead whales rather than killing them, as well as taking samples from live whales using minimally invasive techniques. Furthermore, in countries such as Norway who commercially whale specifically for the meat for human consumption, well they should be required to put warning labels on whale meat detailing how the animal was killed as well as how much mercury the meat

Getting rid of the protection the humpback whales now have would mean that ships and fishermen could get by with hitting or killing a whale or producing too high of noise levels in certain underwater areas. The changes to end humpback whale protection is being suggested due to the fact that scientists claim there are now tens of thousands of humpbacks now vs. only a few thousand back in the 70s when they were originally put on the Endangered list.

People killing whales. What an awful thing but yet there is only about 300,000-350,000 whales left in the entire world. If you have not figured it out yet my paper is being written on the whale killing and how it is bad.

Me and my crew here on the waves of the Antarctic sea have not seen nor tracked any signs of a blue whale since our scientific equipment became operational two weeks ago. The blue whale, the largest animal on planet Earth, has been labeled as endangered on the conservation status chart for more than fifty years and has yet to change. Ever since the banning of blue whale hunting in 1966, blue whales have not increased in population at the rate we have predicted. To this day, even with all the limits hunters have on the ocean, blue whales struggle with accidental beaching and ship collisions.

When scientists were hired by the government to calculate whale stocks and realized that the Northeast Atlantic The numbers scientists presented were found to be misleading however, and since then Norway a “traditional activity of very small scale, catching only minke whales” (Norwegian Whaling). Most politicians and much of the population.

Despite the universal ban on commercial whaling, 1,500 whales are killed each year for ‘scientific research’. We must protect our world's whales to ensure no more whale species become extinct. Further consequences can arise from this single problem, Problems which affect the Human World and Animal Kingdom.

While there are positive outcomes we humans can obtain by hunting whales, such as their meat and the largest bones on the planet, it is not entirely necessary for us to continuously hunt off the species simply for their sources. The oil from blubber, for example, is a medicine that science can easily create now due to technology. There is no need to kill an animal simply for its sources.

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 has become a global environmental issue as vast numbers of whales are killed commercially and scientifically every year. Intense debate on the necessity of whaling has been stirred but failed to be resolved due to the lacking of pragmatic measures employed by the responsible parties. Whaling nations continue to defend their whaling right for cultural and research purposes. Yet, ethical and humanity issues are among the controversial disputes raised by concerned public. In February 2010, International Whaling Commission (IWC) proposed a plan of lifting whaling ban by limiting scientific whaling activities with the intention of reducing overall number of whales killed besides solving the current impasse between pro