Imagine being harpooned through the chest, and the second the spear has punctured far enough into your flesh, a grenade explodes. This leaves you in an agonizing pain, still alive, while gunners shoot repeatedly at your heart and lungs. Then finally when you are deemed dead you are hauled aboard an enormous ship to be butchered. Thirteen different types of whales go through this every year by merciless Japanese commercial and scientific whaling industries. This slaughter has caused the Blue, Gray and Byrde whales to become fewer and fewer.
We need to stop these immoral and needless industries from causing a big dent in the whale populations, and abusing such harmless creatures of our Earth’s oceans. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) issued a moratorium in 1986 that banned whaling. Japan however still practices whaling. Recently whaling has been allowed in Japan under strict quotas that could reduce the death of 935 Antarctic Minke whales per year to 500. Let’s make it our goal to put a stop to it all together. Whaling has diminished different species of whales. The moratorium was put in place to try and replenish whale populations.
This is a big problem because over whaling could bring whales into extinction. Not just commercial industries can be blamed for this. Over 12,000 whales since 1986 have been killed for “scientific” purposes. Japanese governments issue the lethal sampling of whaling to the institute of Cetacean Research (ICR). All excess meat is sold on markets. Researching is just commercial whaling in disguise. It’s unheard of to kill so many mammals for research. It’s said that Japan clams this is their culture, and they feel offended by our need to override their opinions on whaling.
But statistics show less than 10% of Japanese eat whale meat. Japan also says that whales are a high predatory pressure on populations of fish. Japan is concerned that if less whales are able to be caught the availability of fish for humans will lessen. But if whale stocks are not negatively affected by a smaller cull of whales, it is reasonable to say the cull would also be too small to positively affect fish stocks. For this to make a difference they would be putting an even greater population pressure on great whales.
We know that the amount of whale slaughtered is vast and the depleting species are numerous, but the means of slaughter question humanity. Two main methods are used, the explosive harpoons and rifles. What makes these killing methods so brutal is the animal doesn’t instantly die. It suffers for at least several minutes to an hour. 60% of Japanese captured whales fail to dies as soon as they had been harpooned. What make this even more devastating is whales contain spindle neurons. Spindle neurons also have been found in dolphins, human and primates. This enables the whales to process pain much like us.
