Against Whaling Essay Example

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.