The Pros And Cons Of Whaling

The definition of whaling is the practice or industry of hunting and killing whales for their oil, meat, or whalebone. The act of hunting and killing whales is starting to affect the opinions of a portion of the citizens in the countries where whaling is practiced where others support whaling because of the huge role it plays in the history and culture of their country. Whaling was once considered a business for countries including Canada, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. The whale populations as a whole have severely decreased due to the hunting of these species that began around 3000 BC.

Starting with Iceland, whaling has become an issue because the number of tourists visiting the country have

decreased due to their involvement in commercial whaling. The British ambassador of Iceland developed a letter to the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry urging against an end to whaling. Many tourists believe that the whale population is starting to be endangered by this industry and have resulted in many cancelled vacations/trips that were booked. Clive Stacey, of Discover of the World stated “One of the biggest operations of tours to Iceland, said that his company organized trips for 7,000 Britain’s this year, but that in the past fortnight bookings for next year had dropped 25 percent. The company had expected that bookings would increase by 50-100 percent.” With this being said, the impact of whaling has been recognized in Iceland, which is not only impacting the outlook of the country but the business as well.
In contrast to the affects of whaling in Iceland, the country of Japan is a huge supporter in whaling because of the importance it has plated in their history and culture throughout the years. It is said to believe that whaling helped keep the citizens of Japan fed during after World War II and because of this, it is important to the people that it continue to be carried on through their country. An article written by Animal Planet published how the Japanese feel that whaling has made a difference in their country, explaining that “Japan says that its whaling research over the last two decades has paved the way for long-term, sustainable use of this renewable marine food source.” Whaling has become a tradition in Japan and the thought of banning it causes great threat to their culture.
With the opposing viewpoints from Iceland and Japan being said, let’s take an outside look and see the affects this has done for the whales.

The International Whale Protection Organization (IWPO) was organized against the act of whaling and is a non-profit organization. This organization is for supporters like the citizens of Iceland who are concerned with the potential dangers this business brings to the whale population. Another organization that has similar goals as the IWPO is The Internal Whaling Commission (IWC) whose mission it to protect the whales of the sea, consisting of 88 members all around the world. This organization to this day is to make sure the whales are safe, not only from whaling, but from any environmental concern there may be. Although there are many organizations to help the whales, a factor to be considered is that whaling has done well for the economy for the countries that pursued this commercial industry. Whaling has produced many jobs for citizens in these countries, which is not only important to those individuals, it is also important to the economy. Whale’s and their meat are sold at very high profit margins, which results in a great economic

gain.
Many factors are to be considered when determining if whaling is to be a concern to all individuals of the world. It is noted that many countries globally are against the practice and hunting of whales for their oil, meat, and whalebone as well as the importance it is to the country of Japan and economic gains it brings to many other countries. As also said before, whaling is defined as the practice or industry of hunting and killing whales for their oil, meat, or whalebone. It is very interesting to observe the different viewpoints of various countries and what the citizens believe to be fair or unjust, which leads one to question if whaling is a serious issue or not. As of today, whaling is considered to be illegal globally and is only allowed to be practice for scientific research. It has been recognized that even though this law is in place, Japan has discovered a loophole so they are able to continue the industry of hunting whales. If whaling is officially deemed illegal, maybe there should be other laws that are legal and illegal to be reconsidered.