Whales are special. No, not for any stereotypical hippy
la-la reasons, this is *science*!
Healthy oceans need lots of healthy whale populations: they
keep things in balance, help disperse and mix nutrients, support entire
ecosystems and help fight climate change.
Today is the International
Day for Biological Diversity. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but put simply it’s
a day officially set aside to celebrate the world’s wealth of wildlife. For
2014 the theme is Island Biodiversity.
Being held in captivity can chop 50-60 years from a killer whale's life expectancy
When I was little, I can vaguely remember a trip to Blair Drummond Safari Park for my
birthday. This was back in the days when the world was black and white,
Starburst was called Opal Fruits, and they still had dolphins in captivity in
the UK. I don’t remember much, but I know we watched a dolphin ‘show’ with
balls and hoops and clapping and ‘ooh-ing’.
You can’t see a dolphin in the UK doing that today. That is
progress.
Over-exploit, cheat, deplete. The cycle of greed behind the global whaling industry drove one whale population after another toward oblivion. It is still not known if some species will ever recover, even after decades of protection.
Facts and figures
The global whaling industry has driven one whale population after another towards extinctionThe statistics say it all. The blue whales of the Antarctic are at less than one per cent of their original abundance, despite 40 years of complete protection. Some populations of whales are recovering but some are not.
Posted by Willie — 2 October 2009 at 4:53pm
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Comments
Today 26 governments made an official protest (called a 'demarche') to the Icelandic government, caliing on them to reassess their current whaling operations, and end commercial whaling.
Sea squirts on the Inner Hebrides seamount, Scotland
The threats which face the oceans are many and varied. Left unchecked our seas are rapidly being emptied by a combination of overfishing, climate change and industrial pollution. Vital breathing space is needed if there is to be a genuine chance of recovery from the damage caused by years of human activity - but it needs to happen now.
One of the ironies of the fight to end commercial whaling is that over the past decade whale watching has shown the potential to become far more profitable than whaling ever was. It is already generating a staggering $1.25 billion per year globally.
Whale watching takes advantage of the fact that most whales are migratory, moving around the oceans at different times of the year to breed and feed. Much of this migration takes place in coastal waters, where large whale pods can often be clearly seen, either from small boats or from the shore.
To whale, or watch a whale? That was the question Greenpeace posed to guests at an Icelandic tourism event at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on September 24.
The Mayor of Reykjavik, Thorolfur Arnason hosted the London event to promote tourism in Iceland. We were there to make sure the host and attendees realised that Icelandic tourism faces a crisis of confidence. Reykjavik, Husavik, is the centre of the island's whale watching industry - which is already noticing the repercussions of the Government's return to whaling.
