Thursday, December 9, 2010

Whaling - Good or Bad?

Whaling has been a popular issue of debate for about 3 decades now. And especially now that shows such as Whale Wars helped to bring the issue more up front, pressure against the pro-whaling countries are getting higher by the minute. And frankly, I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, I fail to see why pro-whaling countries such as Japan still cling to whaling so tightly. Though Japan kills whales on the pretense of research, it is a known fact that they sell the meat to the market after their research is done. Of course, all this action is legal, so you really can't argue with that. But I know that most of the Japanese population don't even eat whale meat anymore, so why do the Japanese catch more whales then neccessary?
On the other hand, though, I understand what the Japanese may feel when other countries such as America and Australia pressure them to stop whaling. They feel threatened that an outside country will take away their right to practice their culture.

All in all, I think what the anti-whaling people should have done was to go about this issue in a more gentle, logical way. This would have taken some time, but it would have definitely convinced the mass population of Japan to stop whaling. But instead, some of the active parties went for a more direct protest, going to the point of throwing stink bombs at the ships, and taunting them. This would only make the Japanese side more defensive of their actions, thus leading to the way we are now. One way to move this issue forward is to stop these aggressive attacks on whaling ships, instead focusing on convincing the Japanese government to stop whaling.