Rescuing Whales of the World

                        RESCUING WHALES OF THE WORLD

Splash! Imagine sitting in the stands at Sea World in Disney World watching the enormous killer whales put on an amazing show. But, what if you or anybody else could no longer watch these wonderful performances because the whales no longer existed. Killer whales, along with many other types of whales suffer from being hunted for various different reasons. Whale hunting or whaling occurs from the occupation of catching and extracting commercial products from whales (1).



Even though this cartoon is poking fun at whale
hunting, it still captures the aspect of how most
whales are hunted and killed.



Where &Why Whale Hunting  Happens: Whale hunters engage in the capturing and killing of whales because once they sell different parts of the whale to food markets they in return earn money for their labor. Whaling happens all over the world, but a more exact place where this happens is in Iceland. Iceland has accepted this issue that so many people are against for a very long time now. For this reason, the United States has tried to help change Iceland’s views on whale hunting for quite sometime now because Iceland earns a good portion of there money by selling fin whale parts and products to the common person that lives in Iceland (2).

                       Effects of Whaling:

The industry of whaling has hurt their population since whale hunting has been around. The numbers are so high that some of the different species of whales are now considered endangered. Still focusing on Iceland, their involvement of selling whale parts for a cash profit in return went against an official document known as The Fisherman’s Protective Act of 1967, which protected the whales from being hunted because whale hunters were no longer able to sell products of an animal that was on the endangered species list (2). By these whale hunters still participating in whaling, they were technically breaking the law and continuing to increase the possibility that the whales living off the coast of Iceland would eventually become extinct.

A killer whale performs in front of an audience. Although
it's not in its natural habitat, it is safe from being hunted
by whalers.

Protecting All Whales:

 Methods to protect these whales that are being hunted day in and day out have been put in place so that the entire whale population will no longer be endangered or even worse become extinct. Multiple documents have been written and put in place so that hunting these animals in many places around the world is illegal. One written document put in place in the United States is The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 that is attempting an ecological role for all marine mammals (3). In Iceland, organizations are pushing for nonlethal ways of using the whales in the wild by observing them for educational and scientific research to protect them from extinction (2). Finally one of the most common ways of protecting these large animals is by taking them out of the wild and inhabiting the whales in locations such as Sea World in Disney World. Although this form of conservation has it’s negative effects as well, the whales are protected from being hunted and less likely to become endangered or extinct (4).

References

(1) Whaling (Full Definition). (n.d.) Merriam-Webster Online. In Merriam-Webster. Retrieved November 17, 2014 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whaling

(2) Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents. (2014, April 1). Memorandum on Pelly certification and Icelandic whaling.

(3) Roman, J., Altman, I., Dunphy-Daly, M., Campbell, C., Jansy, M., & Read, A.J. (2013). The marine mammal protection act at 40: Status, recovery, and future of U.S. marine mammals.  Annals of the New York academy of sciences, 1286, Issue 1, p29-49. doi: 10.1111/nyas.12040

(4) Oteyza, M. & Cowperthwaite, G (Producers) & Cowperthwaite, G. (Director). July 19, 2013. Blackfish.

Figure 1 Whale Cartoon Image. Retrieved from Cartoonstock website: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/w/whaling.asp

Figure 2 Orca Image. 2014. Retrieved from The Washington Fancy website: http://thewashingtonfancy.com/2012/02/13/peta-calls-for-animal-abortion-rights-planned-parenthood-reaches-out-to-new-species/10776