Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Whales, love them and abuse them

Are whales stealing food from people, or does it go the other way?

According to marine biologist Daniel Pauly, it's "cynical and irresponsible" to argue that whales eat fish which could feed the world's hungry people. But this is exactly the claim made by Iceland, Norway, and Japan, in their quest to increase whale hunting. Now let's see...are these three whale-hunting countries perhaps biased on this issue?

Meanwhile, it will probably be harder for whales to get full bellies in the next few decades because of climate change. Whale feeding areas in the Antarctic are predicted to shrink and move further south, forcing whales to travel farther and concentrate in smaller feeding zones.

The news for whales is just not so good. We have an international deadlock on whale hunting and evidence of cheating (killing too many whales) in the Japanese phony "scientific" whale hunt.

All this for creatures that we love and admire? No wonder it's hard to get people to conserve cold-blooded, wet, and slimy fish.

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