Corruption on the High Seas!

It is a sad testimonial to our time that we see greed and corruption everywhere we look; in business, in government, in schools, and even in houses of worship: so it should come as no surprise to anyone that we also find it on the high seas; or at least in the global organization that is supposedly the protector of the great whales that live therein. The International Whaling Commission, which currently has 89 member nations, issued a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. However, under a scientific research loophole three members have continued to slaughter thousands of whales each year ever since; they are Norway, Iceland and by far the worst offender, Japan. And not only has Japan continued to flaunt this loophole in the face of the anti-whaling movement, but the Japanese government has allegedly been working to get smaller member nations to join with them in having the moratorium lifted. They are doing this by offering aid packages and directly bribing high-ranking individuals in these countries.

If Japan succeeds in this monstrous effort, the oceans of the world will literally be awash once more in the blood of tens of thousands of the most majestic creatures that ever lived, and there will be nothing that you or I can do to stop it. But right now, it is not too late for those of us who care about the great whales to do our part in saving them.

The IWC will hold their annual meeting from July 11 through the 14, on Jersey in the Channel Islands, and it is encouraging to note that the British Government has embarked on a concerted effort to clean up the corruption in the IWC. Those of you who live in Great Britain should show your support for your government's noble efforts; and all of you who live in one of the other member nations (the list is available on line) should reach out to your government and demand that they add their support to the British efforts.

Please do it now! This is not just about stopping corruption in the IWC: it is about saving the lives of countless whales that will otherwise be persecuted without mercy or respite.

A Norwegian April Fools' Joke

April 1st was the start of the annual whaling season in Norway, one of only three countries that continue to defy the 1986 ban on commercial whaling; the other two being Iceland and Japan. Since Norway allowed whaling to begin again in 1993, nearly 10,000 whales have been brutally slaughtered. Contrary to what the captains in their 20 ship fleet would have you believe, the killing of whales is a cruel and brutal procedure that but for the fact that it occurs miles at sea, would sicken any decent human being who witnessed it. However, in an outrageous display of arrogance, intolerance, and stupidity, the Norwegian government does not consider such cruelty as sufficient grounds to halt this barbaric practice.
My ancestry is Norse and the male line of my family can trace our history in an unbroken line back to the first recorded Earl of Orkney, Rognvald the Powerful, a Norseman who lived in the 9th Century A.D. However, as this slaughter is once again being perpetrated upon these magnificent and sentient beings, I am not proud of my heritage.
And the irony in all this is that less than 5% of Norwegians eat whale meat. So who is the bigger fool; the Norwegian government that allows this unwanted slaughter to continue, or the other 95% citizens who enable it through their apathy?

Killer Whale v. Great White Shark

What's the difference between a Killer Whale and a Great White Shark? Some of you might answer, a brain; but you would only be half right.

Orcas are intelligent, sentient, sociable beings capable of reasoning, planning, problem solving, thinking abstractly, comprehending complex ideas, learning quickly, learning from experience, collaborating through communication, and perhaps most intriguing of all, playing, as a triathlete in New Zealand recently discovered. While swimming 80 meters offshore she looked down and saw "a big black and white face looking up at me." After frantically getting back on land, she realized that the Orca was simply curious and wanted to play. On the other hand, Great White Sharks are little more than a life support system for a gruesome mouth, and had this woman's encounter been with one of these mindless eating machines it would have ended differently; horribly so.

Having said this, Great White Sharks possess something that far too many Orcas do not, which is freedom. This is because these sharks die immediately in captivity and cannot be kept in sea parks. Orcas also die in captivity, long before their time, but not right away. Instead they are doomed to suffer years of mindless boredom, physical hardship, and mental anguish. And lest you think that the capture of Orcas in the wild is prohibited, both Japan and Russia have recently begun allowing it again; dooming more of these magnificent creatures to a slow and cruel death, all for our entertainment.

And that, my friend is the real difference between the Killer Whale and the Great White Shark...FREEDOM!


P.S. I'll be traveling for a few weeks and unable to post...see you on the other side.

You Humans Are A Curious Lot

Four million years ago, when your ancestors first walked erect, you were herbivores. By that time, my ancestors, the earliest whales and dolphins, had been swimming through the oceans for over forty million years, and the interaction between our two species was minimal. Two million years later, you became hunter/warriors, running around on your two little feet, clubbing and stabbing to death anything and everything that walked or crawled on land, including your fellow man; but still the interaction between us was limited. Ten thousand years ago, the inevitable happened: you took your killing ways to sea and began hunting my kind, but your methods were primitive and posed no serious threat to us. Thus, for nearly four million years, we co-existed peacefully.
But all that changed in the early 17th century when you began whaling on a commercial scale, and by the 19th century, you had taken your predatory skills to a whole new level, literally slaughtering hundreds of thousands of my kind. For nearly four centuries, this butchery continued unabated, driving many of us to the edge of extinction; until finally in 1986, a caring majority of you decided to bring commercial whaling to an end…sort of. Tragically, some among you, those living in Japan, Iceland, and Norway, still believe that it is their God-given right, their cultural prerogative, to perpetuate the slaughter.
And yet, even as this brutal bloodlust continues, others among your kind work passionately to bring the killing to an end through brave acts on the high seas, proposals submitted to the International Whaling Commission, and legal action brought before the International Court of Justice. You humans are a curious lot; the same DNA that makes some of you cold-blooded killers, makes others peacemakers. And meanwhile, caught squarely in the middle, my kind watches, and waits, and hopes…

Because they always have...

This week, a film titled The Cove was screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Directed by Louis Psihoyos, it is an exposé of the annual slaughter of thousands of whales and dolphins by fishermen in the small Japanese seacoast town of Taiji. For obvious reasons, I have not seen it nor will I. However, I am told that the film contains profoundly disturbing footage of the butchering of my fellow sentient and intelligent beings in that dark and bloody cove. Japanese officials defend this barbaric practice because that is ‘what these fishermen have always done’. They say that the world should respect cultural differences. Cultural differences! Are they insane? By that same perverted logic, the world should tolerate all acts of depravity in any nation as long as there is precedent. I thank the God that made you and me, that over the past two centuries, brave and caring humans in Europe and North America have categorically rejected this monstrous argument put forth by tyrants. If they had not, then slavery and genocide would still prevail in the lands where freedom reigns. The only way to stop this dark carnage inflicted upon my kind by yours is to bring it into the light. Good for you, Louis Psihoyos; good for you, organizers of the film festival for allowing it to be shown; and good for you, the decent people of Japan who are horrified by this brutal practice.