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  • The controversy over "SCIENTIFIC" Japanese whaling has raged since the banning of commercial

  • whaling in 1986 -- are the Japanese going to finally stop their slaughter?

  • Hey gang, Trace here for DNews. Whaling has been practiced by humanity in some form for

  • centuries. Ancient man hunted whales to ensure our species survival -- whale oil, meat, blubber,

  • bones and skin. In ancient times, every part of the massive mammals was used, but today,

  • whaling is a very profitable enterprise coming at the expense of these gentle giants. Many

  • species have seen their numbers drop to near-extinction levels.

  • After four years in court, this week, the United Nations International Court of Justice

  • issued a ruling on March 31 ordering Japan to stop its annual whale hunting around Antarctica.

  • Their ruling states that Japan was killing whales illegally, and not for scientific research,

  • as the country has claimed.

  • In 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned whaling for profit, though allowed

  • for some whaling for scientific research. Under this ban, countries are allowed to catch

  • enough whales to determine if whaling could be allowed in the future... but the court

  • found that Japan was taking advantage of that loophole; catching as many whales as they

  • wanted and then writing scientific research to match how many they killed. The country's

  • own scientific witness said he didn't know how the Japanese researchers calculated their

  • sample sized, and admitted their catching of fin and humpback whales was useless, scientifically

  • speaking.

  • The Japanese continued to hunt whales after the ban, they say, because of tradition. Whaling

  • has gone on for many generations. One thousand years ago, the Basques began the first commercial

  • whaling company. As technology advanced, the number of whales killed annually grew. By

  • 1863, the ships were steam-powered and by 1868 the harpoon cannon was invented to shoot

  • explosives into a whales body. By 1925, the British had built factory ships which could

  • catch, kill, and process a whale without bringing it to port. In the sixty years that followed,

  • 2 MILLION whales were slaughtered for profit.

  • Slowly, the public perception of whales has changed. By the 20th century, humans no longer

  • NEEDED to whale for meat, oil, blubber, bone or skin -- they'd all been replaced by newer,

  • more reliable technologies like modern farming, kerosene, gasoline, synthetic fabrics and

  • so on. As the public tide began to turn, countries around the world appealed to the League of

  • Nations -- the predecessor to the United Nations -- to do something about it. Regulations were

  • put in place in 1931 to stop whales from becoming extinct, but they weren't binding.

  • Bringing us back to the present day, companies in Japan, Norway and Iceland now have fleets

  • of ships accused of whaling for profit and flaunting the ban. The Japanese claim their

  • catches are for research, but since 2005, there have only been TWO scientific papers

  • published on only seven whales. Not to mention the whale meat from this research ends up

  • in commercial markets anyway. Activists like the Sea Shepherd follow and taunt Japanese

  • ships on the open sea in an attempt to make whaling more trouble than it's worth. Full

  • disclosure, a show about the Sea Shepherd airs on Animal Planet, one of Discovery's

  • networks.

  • In the end, Japan has publicly agreed to stop whaling. This doesn't mean they'll never whale

  • again, but if they do so they'll have to justify it with some actual science, and justify KILLING

  • and not non-lethal methods like tagging or sedation.

  • What do you think? Is this tradition? Are people making too much of whaling? Or is it

  • a horrendous practice? We've got comment boxes for a reason, or we're on twitter at DNews

  • or I'm at trace501 -- let's wrap about it. Please subscribe for more DNews and thanks

  • for watching!

The controversy over "SCIENTIFIC" Japanese whaling has raged since the banning of commercial

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為什麼日本需要停止捕鯨! (Why Japan Needs To Stop Whaling!)

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    阿多賓 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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