15/05/2013
New Whaling Legislation.
The number of whales in the ocean has certainly diminished over the last century. The simple reason for this is because of all the whalers who hunt whales for meat and oil. Human beings have become the biggest predator of whales for this reason. This has caused whales to nearly become extinct; however, many countries want to prevent this from happening. So, an international treaty was formed to help protect whales from being hunted any further. Plus, there were more oil reserves discovered in places like Texas and this had made a good argument against hunting whales. Unfortunately, there are a few countries that ignore this treaty and continue to hunt whales.
Japan is a country that joined in on the international treaty to stop whaling. They claim they do not hunt whales anymore, except for “research” purposes. The International Whaling Commission legislation currently has certain loopholes regarding scientific research that Japan takes full advantage of. Then when it comes to the whale meat from the research they have a law that states that the meat cannot be wasted after the research is done. So, the meat ends up getting sold in the grocery stores for a big price. Japan does not seem to want to take responsibility for this and they continue with their colossal line of excuses. They seem to be able to get away with these excuses by bribing small countries to support their “research efforts.” This is a very sad thing considering that a small percentage of Japanese citizens actually like to eat whale meat. This is a meat that is usually consumed by the rich Japanese, since the meat is so much more expensive than other meats.
So can an international treaty really save the whales? It will certainly postpone the inevitable, but eventually the whales will be wiped out. Think about the simple things like fishing. Man fishes so much for seafood, but at the same time they are taking away food from the whales. After all, what do you think whales eat to survive? They eat other fish. It doesn’t help that man is taking those fish away. Plus, there is the huge pollution problem that comes from human beings. Have you ever heard about the Texas size junk of plastic that is in the Pacific Ocean? Whales sure don’t like eating plastic. These are the things that the international treaty cannot possibly stop. In order to save the whales we will have to stop producing plastic, stop fishing and stop emitting carbon into the air from our industrial plants. Do you think human beings will do this much just to save a bunch of whales in the ocean? Probably not, so enjoy them while they are still here on earth.
