Whaling should stay banned

What comes to your mind, if you hear the word – whale? A big sea creature, which you have learned in biology classes about that is the only mammal that lives under water. There is just a little percentage of people, who have ever seen a whale with their own eyes. So why should other people stave off this wonderful experience to them? Also nowadays, when there exists a ban on whaling because of extinction, pro-whaling nations do not consider this to be an important issue. Even now, after twenty years of the ban, some whale species are not recovered. Whaling should stay banned not just from an emotional point of view, that without these ‘jewels of the seas’ will our oceans be almost without visible life, but because of many other reasons, such as the critical endanger of some whale species or because of the loss of intelligent mammals.

As I have mentioned, many whale species are even now endangered. (IWC, 2005). According to the IWC, species like the Semi whale or Blue whale are critically endangered. Can we consider these people to be ‘people’ in the real meaning, if they are hunting them despite of the fact that they are in danger? On the whole world, there are only 3000 whales of the sort Semi whale and less than a half of this amount the sort Blue whale. (New Scientist, 2005). This rapidly declining of whale numbers caused the consequences after the World War II, when there was a lack of food. People were hungered out, whole countries were devastated. For many people in Japan was whaling the only source of food. But today? Japan is one of the most developed countries. What do they need whaling for? After the period of ‘hunger’ is there a period of ‘substantial’.

A whale is a very intelligent being. Many experiments, as the IWC claims, have proven that “whales are sophisticated communicators and can learn more than fifty words to response” (IWC, 2005). Killing such an intelligent sea creature is like to kill a dolphin, which is not tolerated. The report of IWC also points out that whales abound in social behavior.

They live together as a family and killing one of them may have disastrous influence on others. It is like the loss of a family member, but not in a natural way.
Another point why whaling should stay banned is the cruel killing of whales. Fishermen use for the hunt the widespread method with a grenade-tipped harpoon. This harpoon sinks 30-35 centimeters under the whales flesh and then it explodes. This explosion causes several severe injuries of internal organs of the whale. It not only sounds horrible, it is horrible. No living being has the right to suffer. Personally, I cannot imagine the enormous pain if something would explode inside of my body. However, fishermen claims, that the death comes in 10-15 seconds, but the truth is, that this first grenade-tipped harpoon often fails, so another shoot is needed. There are also a lot of cases, when the whale survives the hunt with several injuries inside of their body. These injuries may cause enormous problems and troubles for the whale during feeding, socialization or reproduction. (IWC, 2005).

Pro – whaling nations, such as Japan, Norway or Iceland want to make whaling continue. One of their arguments is that whaling is a part of their tradition. Mr. Komatsu, a deputy of Japan in legalization of whaling is asking, how is it possible that during Thanksgiving millions of Americans eat turkey and they cannot eat whales’ flesh. I respect that whaling is for many nations a part of their tradition, but if we look deeper in this problem, there appears a very visible contra – argument. Thanksgiving is just one day in the year, but pro – nations demand to hunt whales permanently. This is a big difference. Above all, the comparison of whale to the turkey is not suitable. It is like to compare an elephant to an ant. Actually, in the world, there is an amount of ‘thousands’ of whales, however, turkeys are more than a ‘billion’ in the world, and turkeys are known as ‘agricultural animals’ around the world.

Many fishermen claim that not all whale species are endangered. Common view that whales such as the Minke, Beluga or Pilot whale are not endangered (IWC, 2005), is right, but how could fishermen, ordinary village people, whose only job is to kill whales for profit, distinguish whether they hunt for Minke or Semi whale? In many cases even an expert needs some time to distinguish various species of whales. (New Scientist, 2005). How could then fishermen know, when even a professional do not know it? Big problem is also that in case of allowing whaling, there is no prescription that an expert should be on board, to secure endangered species.
In case, pro – whaling nations will win the ‘battle’ of whaling, it will be a big loss for both nature and humans. Nature will miss one of the god’s being and people will miss them because of the same origin. We are both mammals! This would be another step to the end of the world. So, do not allow whaling again!