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Yunhan Jiang

Writing 39C / HCP Final Draft

2/9/2019

Professor Greg McClure

Whaling

Commercial whaling is cruel and inhumane, and it needs to be stopped in future.

Over-whaling causes serious problems which relate to ecology and humanity. Countries near

by oceans such as Iceland and Japan, earned tremendous economic profit from whaling, and

they also are the biggest whaling countries on Earth. During the 20th century, whaling activity

seriously damaged the population of whale species, and endangered several species (EIA

International). Although in recent years whaling becomes unnecessary, as the resources come

from whales are no longer irreplaceable, countries such as Iceland and Japan are still active in

whaling, and more than ten thousand of whales are killed annually (Luke, 2014). Plenty of

researches, studies and articles view whaling as an inhumane and outdated activity and

should be abandoned, but whaling is hard to be fully forbade. In this literature review, I am

going to talk about the history of whaling, hardships of stopping whaling nowadays, and why

we should stop whaling.

History

Whaling has so many steps in human history and it support industrial development,

leading people to a high-technological world. Deal (2016) introduces that whaling started
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earlier than people think. In Neolithic Korea, the depiction of whaling on Bangudae

Petroglyphs could be the earliest whaling record, at around 6000 B.C. However, people in

pre-history did whaling only for their own food, and it could be identify as a normal hunting

activity. The extend of whaling was small, and could not affect natural food chain or cause an

extinguish. However, as the society grew, whaling technique was strongly developed in the

19th century because of the demand of whale oil in industry using. And whale meat began to

be addicted by society in the early 20th century. By the late 1930s, more than fifty thousand

whales were killed annually. Deal (2016) shows whaling in the 18th and 19th centuries as an

important global industry. People did commercial whaling mostly for whale blubber, also

whale meat. Years before, blubber could serve in the manufacture of soap, leather, and

cosmetics. Blubber was also used as wax in candles, and as fuel in lamps (14).

According to EIA International (2018), main stake holders, such as industries in Japan

and Iceland, tasted the huge profit by trading whale products, so they kept expanding the

scale of whaling business. People seldom concern about the health of the species, and keep

on hunting whales greedily. No one concerned about the decreasing population of whales,

especially minke whale, belugas, narwhals and pilot whales. Up to 2,900,000 (2.9 million)

whales were killed in the 20th century because of the industrial revolution. Therefore, the

International Whaling Commission (IWC) prohibited commercial whaling at around 1986

because of the extreme depletion in an amount of many whale species. According to a

research from IWC, only aboriginal whaling was allowed, which would not affect on their

profit.

Donovan (2008) says that nowadays there are alternatives which take the place of
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blubber in industrial usage, and those materials are easier to make. Meanwhile, people in

some areas consume blubber as food, but blubber contains PCBs, also known as

polychlorinated biphenyl. Those carcinogens do harm to human nervous system. As the world

developed, people already have better choices instead of keeping using blubber or eating

whale meat. Right now neither our daily life nor industries depends on whales, and killing

every single whale will be considered as a waste.

Hardship

Although whaling activity started to be controlled, there were countries which did not

apply for the decision, especially European countries, such as Iceland and Norway, and Japan

in Asia. Arne (2013) says in Asia, Japan is always known as the biggest whaling country.

Around forty thousand of whales were killed by Iceland, Norway and Japan since 1986.

Several evidence to show that whaling activity is still in progress, although they are under the

controlling of IWC. For example, Japan announced to leave IWC at the end of June, 2018,

and resumed commercial whaling in July. “Japan has been hunting whales for the past thirty

years under a scientific programme. Critics say the practice is a cover for what actually

amounts to commercial whaling” (Arne, 2013). Junko Sakuma, a researcher working for

Greenpeace in Japan, has been studying in Japan's whaling industry for more than 10 years.

"There is no benefit to Japan from whaling...but nobody knows how to quit," she takes an

interview at Tokyo's famously chaotic Tsukiji fish market, the biggest in the world renowned

for its fresh tuna auctions. If there is a whale meat shortage, the price should be soaring. But

according to Junko it is not. "The fact is, most Japanese people do not eat whale meat," she

says. "Consumption has been falling for years," and follows "even as the amount of whale
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meat decreases, the price doesn't go up". According to Junko's research, the average

consumption of whale meat by Japanese people in 2015 was just 30g (one ounce) per person

(BBC, Japan and the whale).

Why Japan does not want to stop whaling while there are less and less demands of whale

products? Arne (2013) talks about this problem in his book. The explanation from the

Japanese government is that whaling is a part of Japanese culture for decades, that fishermen

have caught whales for centuries. And Japan will never accept foreigners from telling its

people what they should and should not eat. A Japanese official once replied to Hayes, a news

researcher of BBC: "Japanese people never eat rabbits, but we don't tell British people that

they shouldn't". Hayes mentions that rabbits are not treated as endangered species.

In another word, whaling has already become a part of economic cycle in many countries.

It is unrealistic to ban whaling in short term.

Damage

Commercial whaling contains several problems and is extremely inhumane. Whales have

huge bodies which bring them vitality, so they cannot die easily. During the process of

hunting and killing, every whale suffers extreme pain. As whales have huge bodies, there is

no humane way to kill a whale quickly at sea. According to researches given by Janet (2000),

whales’ important organs, such as lung and heart, are hiding deeply inside their bodies,

protected by thick skins and fat. They also contain a large amount of blood, up to 14,000

pounds (6400kg), and it is also impossible to bleed whales for decreasing their pains. For

preventing whales from struggling, people even use harpoons with grenades in whaling.
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Nearly every whale dies painfully during the hunting. Moreover, Joe (2016) says whaling

ships in polar areas often make sounds which are very similar to whales. Those sounds

usually attract whales approaching. Whales identify the ships as members so they will go

closer and give body contacts, so they will be shaved hardly by the high speed screw

propellers. Many whales are killed because of the damage of their vertebra and backs. Joe

(2016) notes that although there are some lucky survivors, they have no choice but carry

scary scars in the rest of their life. Surrounding by sea water, whales suffer from extremely

pain from scars, and they may be isolated by crews because of the weird “marks” on their

skins.

Fig 1. is a scary scar on a survivor from a close shave of a ship’s propeller. Retrieved from:

https://theconversation.com/

Whaling activity seriously threats the safety of whales, and do no contribution to marine life

and environment. Such bloody tradition should be abandoned and prohibited by every person

who contains sympathy.

The Contributions of Whales

Whales do several contributions to oceans. Janet (2000) mentions several aspects about

how whales contribute to marine ecosystems. The famous scene must be “whale pump”,

which is the action whales do to breath. During the process, nutrients such as nitrogen and

iron inside whales are pumped out to surface of oceans. Such activity enhances marine

productivity and enriches the number of species on top of oceans, and even provide foods for

sea birds. What’s more, Donovan (2008) mentions when gray and humback whales feed

themselves at the bottom of oceans, they disturb the soils and dig out substantial sediment.

Such sediments provide nourishment to fish.

What’s more, when a whale dies, its corpse will fall to seabed and become a whale fall. A

whale fall has the ability to become an ecosystem to numbers of marine life. Janet (2000)

talks about the important contribution from whales to the oceans. When whales die, another

story has just begun. The giant bodies sink to the seafloor, where they are treated as foods for

abyssal ecosystems. When whales die their massive bodies save significant amounts of

carbon and contain massive organic enrichment, including proteins and lipids, to the sea floor,

an area often impoverished in nutrients and energy. Janet (2000) states that if there are no

whale falls, seafloors will be mostly barren and no life can survive. Nowadays, a large

number of whales are caught and killed by human on land. Which means less whale falls can

be created. The decrease of whale corpses will finally lead to a decline of life number in

abyssal zone. A well-made video from Smithsonian Ocean talks about how a whale fall is

made and what tremendous contribution does a whale fall provide to the deep ocean

ecosystem:
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https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/marine-mammals/life-after-whale-whale-falls

The style of the video is also easy to be achieved by kids, and can be a good source of animal

protecting education.

Whaling problems must be addressed soon. Nowadays most of whale stocks are in

extremely depletion. What’s more, the process of killing a whale is inhumane. If the problem

continues, many kinds of whales will face a threaten of extinguish, such as minke whale,

belugas, narwhals, pilot whales. The amount of deep sea creatures will also be decreased

because of the loosing of whale falls. There are already uncountable species of animals

extinguished because of human hunting activities, we have no right to create more loose on

Earth.
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Work Cited

Donovan, Greg (2008).

"Whaling". Microsoft Encarta.

Rendell, Luke. “Could This Be One Reason Why Whale Populations Have Not Recovered

Following Hunt Ban?” The Conversation, The Conversation, 25 July 2014,

theconversation.com/could-this-be-one-reason-why-whale-populations-have-not-recover

ed-following-hunt-ban-29621.

Wingfield-Hayes, Rupert. “Japan and the Whale.” BBC News, BBC, 8 Feb. 2016,

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749.

“Smithsonian Ocean.” Ocean Portal | Smithsonian, Smithsonian's National Museum of

Natural History, 22 May 2018,

ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/marine-mammals/life-after-whale-whale-falls.

“Commercial Whaling: Unsustainable, Inhumane, Unnecessary.”

EIA International, eia-international.org/reports-mm/keeptheban/

Deal, Robert. The Law of the Whale Hunt: Dispute Resolution, Property Law, and American

Whalers, 1780-1880. Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Roman, Joe (2006-05-01). Whale. Reaktion Books. p. 24. ISBN 9781861895059. Retrieved

25 March 2017.

Mann, Janet, et al. Cetacean Societies: Field Studies of Dolphins and Whales. Univ. of

Chicago Press, 2000.

Kalland, Arne, and Brian Moeran. Japanese Whaling: End of an Era? Routledge, 2013.