This morning in The New York Times is an article detailing Japan's desire to return to whaling activities. The news comes despite the fact that an international court ruled against Japan's whaling practices. Since 1982, commercial whaling has been under a moratorium. Japan, however, has exploited a loophole that allows for scientific research. In addition to Japan, Norway and Iceland continue to whale, registering a point of contention with the moratorium.
The Northern-Pacific island-nation has claimed that it is researching whale population recovery since the moratorium was agreed upon by the international community. That doesn't pass the smell test for most people, because - as any scientist would tell you - you don't kill a portion of a biological population just to see how quickly it will recover. More importantly, you don't do it year after year. Modern science would require that you study a population before an environmental incident which caused serious decline in the species and then analyze the recovery of that species after the specific incident.
Sea Shepherd has famously tracked Japanese whaling vessels and documented their continued commercial-scale culling of specific whale species. I am sure they wanted to focus their efforts on other nations who continue to exploit whales for commercial purposes. However, as the Times points out, if Japan resumes its whaling under a different guise, the Sea Shepherd organization will be devoting a great deal of time and money to combat the renewed effort by Japanese whalers. There are other organizations that police the waters and work to hold offending nations accountable. Obviously, that is not enough to deter Japan. The loophole that has allowed Japan to get away with this for so long needs to be struck out of the moratorium agreement. The other part of the solution is for us to volunteer our time or donate to one of the marine organizations, such as Sea Shepherd, that are committed to protecting whale populations from hunting.
The Northern-Pacific island-nation has claimed that it is researching whale population recovery since the moratorium was agreed upon by the international community. That doesn't pass the smell test for most people, because - as any scientist would tell you - you don't kill a portion of a biological population just to see how quickly it will recover. More importantly, you don't do it year after year. Modern science would require that you study a population before an environmental incident which caused serious decline in the species and then analyze the recovery of that species after the specific incident.
Sea Shepherd has famously tracked Japanese whaling vessels and documented their continued commercial-scale culling of specific whale species. I am sure they wanted to focus their efforts on other nations who continue to exploit whales for commercial purposes. However, as the Times points out, if Japan resumes its whaling under a different guise, the Sea Shepherd organization will be devoting a great deal of time and money to combat the renewed effort by Japanese whalers. There are other organizations that police the waters and work to hold offending nations accountable. Obviously, that is not enough to deter Japan. The loophole that has allowed Japan to get away with this for so long needs to be struck out of the moratorium agreement. The other part of the solution is for us to volunteer our time or donate to one of the marine organizations, such as Sea Shepherd, that are committed to protecting whale populations from hunting.
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