Whaling

Whaling is a very old and ancient tradition in mainly European countries. Since the year of 1987, whaling has been banned. Despite this ban on whaling, many countries still hunt and kill hundreds of whales a year in many different oceans. They claim that these hunts are for scientific purposes while they harvest the meat of the whale for thousands of dollars of profit. An example of this is the Japanese hunting Minke Whales in the Antarctic Ocean. Groups of large boats tail these whales and when the time is right, the boats will shoot large harpoons into the whales. The whales are then dissected for meat onboard the ship.

Some people are fighting back against whaling. The Sea Shepherds, a wildlife conservation group, focuses on saving marine animals from the threats of poaching. In 2008, the Sea Shepherds set out on a mission to stop the Japanese from poaching whales. Through all odds, they were able to stop these poachers using non violent actions. A TV series was made out of this journey called Whale Wars. In the past century, the amount of whales in our oceans have become very scarce. If we show anymore tolerance to this “legal poaching” we will soon have the sight of a magnificent whale jumping out of the water a very rare occasion.