Renewed Whale Hunting?

Conservationists fear the pro-whaling nations will have a majority at next week's International Whaling Commission meeting in the Bahamas. A majority is not enough to lift the ban on commercial whaling, but could broaden the loophole of so-called "scientific whaling" and ease retrictions on trading in whale goods. Japan has already resumed "scientific hunting" of the endangered fin whale as well as the non-endangered minke. Pro-whaling nations cite economics and tradition in support of hunting whales, while opponents cite the economic benefits of whale-watching businesses.

COMMENT: I think the "nos" have it. The whaling done for "scientific" purposes is barely disguised commercial whaling, with the meat winding up in restaurants and the supposed research never getting published. Meat from protected species of which no hunting is allowed somehow still turns up in Japanese markets. Finally, some species of great baleen whales, which are very slow to breed and mature, remain critically endangered, with the giant blue whale as the outstanding example. If we lose one through a badly advised expansion of any whaling, by whatever name, the planet has lost a treasure forever.

"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed. A vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer. But when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again." - William Beebe