1. Protecting Whales
Have you ever heard of the story Moby Dick? It’s a fictional story were whale hunting is an adventure for brave
men. The whale in this story is the worst beast that attacks ships and they people believe it should be killed.
But in real life, whales are harmless to us. We should respect them, just like any other animal on earth. Still,
nowadays we kill thousands of whales and most of us don’t know that whales are endangered.There are very
few left today, killing them is causing them to become extinct. When a species becomes extinct, it often affects
the structure and behaviour of the environment in which the species lived, for example greatly affecting the
aquatic ecosystem. This has also been seen to cause a loss to the culture and extent of biology in our world.
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either
few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters.
The killing of whales is referred to as ‘whaling’… Whaling isn’t something that is recent it’s been going on for
centuries, thousands of years ago people only knew whales if they were stranded on the coast. They thought
these whales were gifts of gods and they began to use the whales for their own lives. They ate the meat, used
the blubber as fuel, and used the bones as building material. People recognized that whales were useful and
after a while they tried to hunt them. Very brave men in little boats caught whales with harpoons. The earliest
whale hunters were probably the Vikings. Then, people from other countries like Spain, France, England, and
the Netherlands also began to catch whales. The hunters couldn’t separate and use the whale in their ships
and they had to transport them to land. This was difficult, so they could only catch whales near land.
Time had lapsed awhile the whales that lived near the coast became scarce and the whale hunters had to go
further out on the sea to catch the whales. Therefore, whale hunters built better weapons and ships. Now they
discovered new whale families. They took many ships out on the sea and searched for whales. If they found
one, they surrounded the whale and chased it to land. With this new hunting method the hunt area spread out
from the European Atlantic coast to the Arctic. From the east and west coasts of America people also began
hunt whales. At the coastline people began to build villages and began to earn their living by making materials
out of whale parts. Whale hunting and working became an industry for many countries.
Today unregulated commercial whaling has had a very serious impact on the world’s whale populations.
Whales reproduce at a very slow rate, so the small numbers of whales being born each year were not able to
keep up with the fast rate at which they were being killed. This resulted in a severe overkill of the whale
population, leading to the extinction of many whale species and the endangerment of many others, including
the blue, fin, right, sperm, grey, humpback and sei whales.Upsetting the natural balance can kill the eco-
system. If the oceans die, we die.
The decline in the whale population was not ignored by the international community and serious action was
taken in an effort to save the remaining whale species. This action came in the form of the International
Convention on the Regulation of Whaling, 1946. This international agreement, involving 42 nations, called for
the international regulation of whaling to ensure that whales did not continue to be over-hunted.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established to carry out this function. In 1986 the IWC
introduced a complete ban on commercial whaling for an indefinite period of time. This ban was set up to
continue until the IWC found a way that whaling could be undertaken without causing whale populations to
decrease to dangerously low levels. No way has been found yet, so the complete ban on commercial whaling
continues.
Despite this international ban on whaling, whales are still being killed on a daily basis. Statistics from the
bureau of statistics show:

2. 1,400 whales are killed every year
25,000 whales have been killed for commercial purposes since 1986
7 of the 13 species of great whales are still endangered!
Only a few of the many species at risk of extinction actually make it to the lists and obtain legal protection like
Pandas. Many more species become extinct, or potentially will become extinct, without gaining public notice
The simple explanation behind the continued decline in the whale population is that countries such as Japan,
Norway and Iceland – are still whaling, despite the ban!
Against: Many countries and interest groups oppose whaling on the basis that the method of killing is
unethical and inhumane. They believe that death by harpoon has the potential to impose a traumatic, slow
and painful death for these highly evolved mammals, without producing great benefits for the public.
Others argue that whaling is uneconomic. They think that by hunting these mammals, whalers are robbing the
tourist industry of lots of money. Whale watching is fast becoming a very lucrative business and people who
have an interest in it argue that ‘a whale can only be killed once, but can be watched several times.’
A final argument against whaling is based on conservation concerns. There is worldwide agreement that it is
morally wrong to exterminate an animal species. In light of this, anti-whaling advocates argue that banning
whaling is essential in order to prevent their extinction. This stems from the fear that whale populations will be
unable to withstand hunting because they are already subject to a number of other threats such as climate
changes and pollution.
Other countries and interest groups believe that such conservation concerns are unfounded. They argue that
the species of whale that are targeted for commercial whaling are not endangered and therefore no moral
obligation toward them exists.
The economic argument is also challenged. Pro-whalers state that the economic benefits of whaling, including
employment, and the trade of whale products far outweighs benefits of whale watching. They also think that
commercial whaling, in being subject to regulation, will not deplete whale numbers, and will therefore enable
both industries to flourish.
A final argument rests on the fishing industry. Pro-whalers consider that whaling is essential for the successful
operation of commercial fisheries. Because the annual diet of a whale consists of 10 kg of fish per kilogram of
body mass, whaling is said to be essential in order for adequate amounts of fish to be available for humans.
Where does Australia stand?
Since 1979 Australia has strongly opposed whaling and has become a strong advocate for the permanent
international ban of commercial whaling. In particular, Australia plays a central role in opposing attempts by
Japan to lift the international commercial whaling ban.
Without whales what happens to the biodiversity… Humans have an impact on the species and their
environment. “As human use of resources, energy, and space intensified over the past few centuries, the
diversity of life has been substantially diminished in most parts of the world” (Ishwaran&Erdelen, 2006,
p. 179).
“Diversity of life and living systems are a necessary condition for human development” (Ishwaran&Erdelen,
2006, p. 179). Many question the importance of maintaining biodiversity in today’s world, where conservation
efforts prove costly and time consuming. Species should be saved for “aesthetic and moral justifications; the
importance of wild species as providers of products and services essential to human welfare; the value of
particular species as indicators of environmental health or as keystone species crucial to the functioning of
ecosystems; and the scientific breakthroughs that have come from the study of wild organisms” (Wilcove&
Master, 2008, p. 418). In other words, species serve as a source of art and entertainment, provide products

3. such as medicine for human well-being, indicate the welfare of the overall environment and ecosystem, and
provided research that resulted in scientific discoveries.
What Whales are good for-
We've been hearing reports about the worrying effects of ocean acidification, and the even more worrying
concepts for how to combat it, including dumping iron into the oceans as fertilizer for marine plant life, which
stimulates growth all the way up the food chain. Right now, acidification is intensifying thanks to carbon
emissions. But rather than geo-engineering solutions to the problem. We could just stop whaling since it turns
out that they do just that fertilizing for us.PhysOrg writes that the experts have found that whale excrement is
iron rich thanks to their diet of krill, and it acts as an effective plant-friendly fertilizer.
"When whales consume the iron-rich krill, they excrete most of the iron back into the water, therefore
fertilising the ocean and starting the whole food cycle again," scientist Steve Nicol said.
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP7PZMMpgcw