All I Want For Christmas Is Living Whales…

Speaking of Cetaceans, there has been recently hullabaloo over Japan’s announcing that this year they will go to Antarctica and kill nearly 1,000 minke and 50 humpback whales for “scienctific research”, which we all know is bullshit. Thankfully the international uproar was so great that they have put the trip on hold, hopefully indefinitely.

However, I heard something on the radio today that really pissed me off. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to hear the whole interview so I will have to paraphrase, and I’m sorry if I get my facts wrong (if you heard it, let me know what was actually said if I’m confused here). I was listening to the BBC Worldservice on NPR this morning and they had an interview with someone who I believe was a member of the Japanese government (although he sounded British) in some capacity. He basically said (and the interviewer repeated this back to him) “We have to kill whales so we know how many there…so we know if we can kill more whales.”

What the hell? Aside from that being the worst logic ever (couldn’t we just follow them and count them?), it is just a horrible way to think. I mean I generally am not against hunting, and I’ll grant you whales have bounced back, but why do people insist on wanting to kill them? They are familial, intelligent creatures, a very important part of the ecosystem and our cultural hertitage, and almost everything you get from them can be manufactured elsewhere these days.

There’s just no excuse. I’ll make a small exception for the First Nations peoples who are allowed to take the occasional whale for traditional reasons, but only if they use traditional weapons and methods where the whale has at least as much chance of killing you as the other way ’round. If you’re hunt whales because of tradition, but you are hunting them in speed boats with modern harpoons, forget it. And you’d better be living a traditional lifestyle. If you live next to McDonalds or Walmart, you don’t get to kill whales anymore. Sorry.

Japan’s excuse of scientific research is just insulting to our intelligence. They are killing whales because they like the meat, and trying to pull wool over the eyes of the international community is pointless. It’s time we said, “We don’t care why you want to kill them, you just can’t any more.” Whales, even more so than other large mammal (seeing as how they inhabit all oceans of the world), belong of all of us. That makes it everyone’s duty to protect them and no one’s right to destroy them.

~ by lycaon on December 21, 2007.