Save the Whales

Every day whales around the world are being killed. Although some whales are being killed for scientific purposes, the majority of them are killed for their meat by poachers or whalers working for different countries. Careless companies dispose of their waste incorrectly, and in today's society, people do not seem to care about anything but themselves. Arguments can be made both for saving the whales and for killing them; this is a topic that has caused much debate over the past two decades, not only in America, but worldwide. Environmentalists and international governing groups have squared off against whale poachers and countries who ignore the laws governing whales, in an attempt to stop the ongoing, unnecessary killing.

All marine life is affected by careless human activity. Man-made pollution from dumps, chemical plants, power plants, and pesticides all flow and spread throughout the oceans of the world. Even low-level contamination of small, sometimes microscopic species causes highly concentrated contamination in larger marine life, specifically whales. Plankton, the main constituent of a whale's diet, is a very small organism that drifts for thousands of miles throughout the oceans, and as a result easily spreads pesticides, toxic metals, and other contaminants throughout the ocean. When the whales eat the plankton, the small amounts of contamination become highly concentrated in the whales systems. Pollution, although deadly over long periods of time, is not the main source of unnecessary whale death worldwide. A recent technology developed by the US Navy emits the most powerful sound known to man straight into the ocean waters.

This newly developed technology, called low frequency active sonar (LFA), was d...

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http://files.hsus.org/web-files//PDF/SWNW_IWCFctsht.pdf

<4> Defenders of Wildlife: http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/new/marine/whales/climate.html

<5> Save the Whales: http://www.savethewhales.org

<6> Humane Society of the U.S.: http://www.hsus.org/ace/19943

<7> WhaleNet Population Study: http://whale.wheelock.edu/whalenet-stuff/ser_population.html

<8> Pro-Whaling Nations: http://files.hsus.org/web-files//PDF/SWNW_ProWhalingFctsht.pdf