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.

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…