The Whaling Controversy

Ocean Schage

Khosrozadeh

1st period

4/14/14

The Whaling Controversy

Since the beginning of time whaling, a productive industry thrived throughout the world. Wither or not whaling should still be active today can be a controversial topic. Through all the years of whaling, whales arrived to near extinction. Many health risks derive from eating whale meat. Also the practice of whaling contains dangerous aspects. Although many risks out lurk the business, many rewards strive to be found. If you stay in the business long enough, it can be very profitable and beneficial to the worker and his or her family. Many advances in technology makes whaling a lot more easily than it used to be. Whaling is considered an art in some countries and still practiced today. But some countries view whaling as a negative. Many anti-whaling groups strive to stop them. They risk their own lives every single day just for the lives of these whales. Whaling has its advantages and disadvantages, but it is an undergoing problem we still live with and focus on today.

First of all, over the past two hundred years the whale population has been reduced by seventy five percent. At this rate there will soon be no more whales in general and the species will soon be diminished. The whale species is being killed off faster than they can reproduce. Therefore the population is declining. Not only are we killing them off quickly, they are being killed brutally. The death count is not on the whalers, it is on the whales! The whales are massacred with harpoons. Harpoons have barbs so when you penetrate the whale you cannot pull the harpoon back out. Normally when this happens the whale’s lungs collapse, then suffocate, or they bleed to death. Many people forget that th...

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...t move. This is useful because they shut down the whaling process for hours. Every hour the ship is disabled is another whale’s life that is saved.

In past years, the whaling technology has improved quite severely. Early whaling whalers docked off small boats and rowed all the way out to where they harpooned the ship. Now in days whalers have giant harpoon ships. The early harpoon was just a stick with a barbed knife at the end that whalers had to throw at the whale. Whaling captains looked for the strongest men to be their harpooners because of how difficult the job was. Now in days there are harpoon guns. The harpoons are still built the same except they were shot out of a gun. The harpoon guns are located at the front of the ship so they can easily spot the whales, then the harpoons are shot as a projectile and then penetrates the whale with such great force.