It seems fitting for this post to follow my review of Big Miracle, the film account of the rescue of three grey whales off Barrow, Alaska, up above the Arctic Circle. The conditions portrayed in the film were harsh, incredibly cold, and unrelenting. Once the ice starts and thickens, it’s there for the long haul. Getting through it or away from it is extremely difficult. And anyone who has ever watched one of those extreme fishing shows, like Deadliest Catch, knows how violent, unpredictable, and quickly changing the conditions can be in open water.

So why, then, is Shell leading the charge to do offshore drilling up in that part of the world? And why are we still clinging so tightly to oil/fossil fuels that we choose to turn our eyes away and just let it happen, rather than rising up en masse and demanding clean/green energy developments that can save our planet now, before it is too late?

Fortunately, not everyone is sitting still for it. Recently, seven activists from Greenpeace New Zealand, including actress Lucy Lawless (Xena, Spartacus), scaled a 53 meter tower on the Noble Discoverer, a drilling ship in port in New Zealand but scheduled to head up to the Arctic to do exploratory off shore drilling, hired by Shell. The GNZ occupiers had enough supplies to last about a week, and determination to stick it out for as long as possible. And, largely thanks to Lucy, they attracted worldwide attention to a ship and a mission that would likely never have made a blip on the radar outside of New Zealand.

It’s not unusual or out of bounds to feel dubious about any action where a celebrity is involved. Cynics who have railed about this as a PR stunt for Lucy Lawless are simply not paying attention. Would the world have noticed if it was “just” seven Greenpeace volunteers? Not nearly as much. But Lucy did not do this for her entertainment profile. She has the courage of her convictions, more than many. Lucy’s own words explain how her involvement came about and why. This was not about a TV show or movie; this was about survival, and leaving a better planet for the next generation than what we’re experiencing now. But she also knows she has a public profile, and that she is using it to raise awareness about something which should matter to every single one of us is admirable, I believe.

I have never understood why oil companies are not on the forefront of clean/green energy development. Oil is a finite resource. It simply is. All fossil fuels are. That we need to find increasingly dangerous and destructive methods of ‘extraction’, like tar sands oil and hydrofracking for natural gas, shows how desperation pushes us into bad moves. We don’t have to wait for evidence of how destructive these methods have become. We’ve already seen toxic coal ash lake spills (Lake Michigan in 2011 – I didn’t even remember hearing about this one! – and Tennessee in 2008), natural gas infiltrating drinking water supplies in Pennsylvania, and plans in Canada to kill wolves for better access to tar sands. (There are many stories on line about all of these issues. A romp through Google will give you much to read.) These are signs of a world gone mad.

When I see those great big oil spills, like what happened in the Gulf of Mexico with Deepwater Horizon, I think not only about the massive damage to wildlife and the ecosystems, but about all of that lost oil, that valuable black gold, which is now completely lost, and regarded as such with a shrug and ‘business as usual’ approach by oil companies. There are new reports out every week about the ongoing impact that the oil spill has had on marine life in the Gulf. Recent stories have appeared in the New York Times, Voice of America, Nola.com, and Physorg.com. This is an ongoing crisis. The well may no longer be gushing, but we will be discovering and learning about the devastating effects for years. And this was a spill that took place in relatively easily accessible waters, under mostly hospitable weather conditions. A far cry from the harsh Arctic.

Shell has reportedly already spent $4 BILLION on prep for Arctic drilling. Just think about how much green energy R&D could have been accomplished with those same funds. Then, instead of having protestors climbing the towers of rusty drilling ships, Shell could be hailed as an industry leader, trendsetter, and be poised to revolutionize energy while staying profitably in business. It’s like the oil baron of Big Miracle, who decides to get involved to pretty up the PR image. Cynical, certainly, but does that matter if we all win in the end? I’m not against profit. I am against profit at the expense of the rest of us, which is what unbridled exploration for and use of fossil fuels gets us.

Oh, and their grand plan for detection of oil spills in under the (diminishing but still…) vast Arctic ice? Three small dogs, a dachsund and two border collies. You read that right. Shell has trained three small dogs to sniff out oil under an expanse of ice that cannot be properly predicted given the conditions up there. Setting aside the total absurdity of this plan, there are doubts that a small dog could sniff through thick ice. AND they have the audacity to file preemptive lawsuits against environmental organizations like The Sierra Club and Greenpeace, trying to prevent them from standing up against this needless, reckless drilling, doing so at rather great risk. Somehow Shell thinks that stopping protests from organizations from using the legal system to protect our planet will just allow them to continue on unhindered. Which is what makes a small but visible protest like the one in New Zealand all the more important.

There’s also now a very serious potential problem in the North Sea near Scotland (read the story at Mother Jones), where a well is leaking methane gas to the point of creating a critical massive explosion risk. All workers have been evacuated, but a burn off flame was left on which means it might not take much for that explosion to occur. And, the gas that is leaking is “sour gas“, which includes hydrogen sulphide. This is toxic to ALL marine life. It’s quite possible that this could create untold devastation. And it’s another highlight to the danger of off shore drilling, even without the extra risk entailed of doing such in the Arctic.

I’m publishing this post on Lucy Lawless’ birthday (I guess there was a good reason I was taking my time with it!) and her request for this day of her fans is to do something good for the planet. I do a lot of basic things already (no single use water bottles, using reusable shopping bags, driving an efficient car and more). But most importantly, I am using my voice. Below is a video for a song which is becoming my new anthem, Sugarland’s “Stand Up.” I ask everyone: stand up, use your voice. Be aware and involved. It’s only this way that we can save the Arctic, our planet, and ourselves as well as all of the amazing flora and fauna around us. Because it’s not as much about ending oil energy, not right this second. It’s about expanding the energy industry and moving beyond oil/fossil fuels. Because this planet belongs to ALL of us, not solely to greedy profiteers. There is plenty of profit to share even if we treat our planet more gently, and develop/implement far more sustainable, infinitely less destructive ways of fueling our economies and lives.

As Lucy says in a short video about this: “We don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to extract every last drop of oil. We’ve  got to smarten up and move to a clean energy economy now.”

Go ahead, use your voice!

Related links:
For Lucy Lawless fans, her official Save The Arctic Protest page
Carmen Gravatt op-ed in NZ Herald News: We Don’t Need Extreme Oil
Lucy Lawless v. Shell: David v. Goliath – voxy.co.nz
Nathan Argent: Why Greenpeace occupied drilling ship – NZ Herald News
In depth interview with Lucy and Viv Hadlow after the protest ended  

All photos in this post ©Greenpeace New Zealand

What’s so different about this whale’s song? Different species of whales make sounds or calls within their own range of frequencies. Fin whales’ calls are at about 20 hz. Blue whales, the largest mammals ever, call out in the 10 – 20 hertz range. Most of us have heard the haunting sounds of humpback whales, initially made famous by recordings made by Roger Payne. Those fall in the 30 hertz to 8 kilohertz range.

This unknown whale calls out at 52 hertz. Think lowest note on a tuba. Sounds pretty low, right? But if you listen to the clip here at NOAA. It’s quite different from other recorded whale sounds (you can hear samples of several whale calls on Wikipedia.) It’s comparatively a fairly high sound.

There is much speculation about its origins and being lonely, unable to be heard and therefore find mates (or even ‘colleagues’?). Its migrations and travels are unlike other known whales. None of the stories mention if the calls have ever been heard in the vicinity of other active whale calls so it’s impossible to know if this whale has ever met another whale (aside from its mother), given how vast the oceans are. Perhaps somewhat ironically, that this whale has been heard at all is thanks to the US Navy’s hydrophone arrays, installed to track enemy submarines. Declassified recordings allowed the discovery of this solitary whale, as well as information about known species like blue and fin whales.

As a human with a hearing loss, which results in my interactions with the world being somewhat different from most, I kinda wish I could just go give this whale a hug. And since whales are primarily acoustic animals and not visual, not being able to interact in this primary fashion is not a good thing. Whether or not this singular whale hears any others would be a fascinating question to answer, but I’d guess that if it could hear others, it might seek them out. I’m not finding any reports that this has happened, at least not when .

What bothers me about most, if not all, of the stories I have seen about this whale is the constant comment that it sings at the ‘wrong’ frequency. Without knowing anything about this whale aside from the sounds it makes, wrong seems to be overstating things a bit dramatically. Better, I think, to call it a unique frequency, one never heard before by our ears (and apparently the ears of other whales currently swimming about in the Pacific Ocean).

This is just another example of the many mysteries still held by our oceans. Let’s hope we have time to understand them before we kill the oceans altogether.

(This post was greatly aided by stories posted by Gizmodo, Kur5hin, and Good.)

So, good news? Sort of! Let’s start with the news that Japan has ended its Antarctic whaling season early this year! They are, of course, blaming Sea Shepherd for keeping their quota of 1000 whales down to less than 200. And yes, there have been clashes (no injuries reported). But there’s also been mounting international pressure which has to be making an impact. Not to mention the fact that there is something like 5000 tons of whale meat sitting in freezers already because the population just is not eating it.

What almost made me laugh for its ludicrously blatant chess puffing is an editorial from Japan about the end of the Antarctic season. The most telling line in it is this, at the end: “And we tend to react with anger when foreign countries tell us we shouldn’t eat it.” The editorial acknowledges foreign pressure. It also acknowledges the lack of stomach for the meat: “Demand for whale meat is not growing at all in Japan, and the nation’s ocean-going whaling industry is effectively dead. Given this reality, there is little justification for Japan’s stated need to resume commercial whaling in the Antarctic.”

And yet, the crux of it all comes down to the defensiveness of the “don’t tell us what to eat” position. They refer to whales as “utilizable resources” (using the quotation marks themselves) as opposed to the intelligent marine mammals that most of the rest of the world sees them as, seeking their protection. If Japan had no other resources for food, zero other means for feeding their population, that position might hold more credibility. It does not. I get not wanting to be told what to eat. But this is larger than that. This is their refusal to actually learn anything from their so-called scientific research aside from, theoretically, how many whales they can kill without devastating the populations, much less learning from the massive and growing bodies of research from around the world which bolster the many reasons why whales should be protected and not eaten.

Why is this all only sort of good news? There has been no permanent cessation of commercial whaling by Japan (not to mention Iceland and Norway). There is still the vicious dolphin hunting that occurs every year in Taiji, Japan. Whaling for this year might be over (including an early end to the dolphin slaughter), but the matter is still unresolved. I wish we could find a way to help Japan end these programs while also allowing it to save face culturally as it appears to desperately want. That would be a win on all sides.

One thing that is maddening about this proposed compromise process is that in the last few days, numerous stories have been published that all undermine Japan’s thin veneer of legitimacy. First, there’s the whaler who has stepped forward to talk in detail, from first hand knowledge, about the pilfering and reselling of whale meat. There are the reports that Japan is bribing countries to vote with them, using not only money but entirely false arguments about the impact of (re)growing whale populations. And now, there is a story about new research – not into learning about whales but to find new ‘applications’ for whales’ bodies.

And still I wonder – are these stories too late? Will there be enough momentum against sanctioned commercial whaling to make a difference? How deeply entrenched and backwards are the politics at the IWC?

South Korea has indicated that if commercial whaling is restored for Japan, Norway and Iceland, it will also start to issue whaling permits. I think it is folly to think that this can truly be a controlled return to sanctioned whaling.  It cannot wind up with a reduction in whale catch if other countries start killing whales as well. And while Japan is the most visible villain in this battle, this compromise also involves Norway and Iceland, whose combined whaling catch exceed Japan’s.

Meanwhile new and legitimate research is producing stories all the time about whales, including a recent story about long term ‘friendships’ formed by humpback whales. A simple Google search on whale-human encounters will yield seemingly countless anecdotes which only bolster the growing theories of intelligence, sentience, and community amongst whales. These are not simple fish. There is no humane way to kill a whale. This should not even be a subject of debate any longer!

Oh and I want to add – as this was pointed out to me today by the fine folks at the Whale Center of New England – this proposed compromise does NOT guarantee an end to whaling in 10 years. It merely attempts to add limits to catches over the next decade. Once that decade concludes, we could well be back at the drawing board and having to fight from scratch to end whaling. Again.

So what do we do? I have sent more than one message to Obama at the White House (the guy who promised to end whaling). I will send another. Wherever you live, regardless of how your government stands on the issue, tell them you are against whaling. If your government is against whaling, the reinforcement that this is the right position is important. If it supports whaling, it needs to hear opposition.

As I said, the IWC meeting starts on June 21. There are multiple avenues for tracking new from it: IWCblogger, the IWC itself, even through a Japanese site (which could be painful yet interesting for an alternate perspective). WCDS also has a Twitter feed, AllEyesonIWC, which will have information about the meeting.

I’m on the edge of my seat!

There are three things that are bringing attention to these matters to the fore: the death of the SeaWorld trainer, Dawn Brancheau, the recent Small Group meeting of the International Whaling Commission to discuss a fundamental shift in whaling (basically going from “banned” to permitted commercial whaling), and the Oscar win for Best Documentary to The Cove (congrats to all involved in that film!).

What can we do, those of us who are not working for marine organizations or right on the front lines?

At the moment, the most urgent thing we can do is to contact our government representatives. There is a serious effort being made to create a plan that allows for some commercial whaling towards the goal of ending all commercial whaling. The US is one of the countries working on this – it is critically important to increase public pressure to say that this is NOT acceptable. Killing whales on a commercial level needs to end, period.  This proposed compromise simply rewards Japan, Norway and Iceland – who have been flouting the ban on whaling for decades and even increased their kill numbers – by given them legitimacy without an enforceable way to ensure that the killing DOES end. Meanwhile, thousands more whales will suffer inhumane deaths. President Obama has promised not to allow whaling – contact the White House and make sure he does not become the president who DID move towards killing whales.

In the case of The Cove, which works to expose the slaughter of thousands of dolphins in Japan, you can send the text DOLPHIN to 44144. Be aware that this will place you on a text alerts list (from which you can easily opt out) and will be subject whatever text charges you have on your cell plan.

Stay up on the news. If you’re on Twitter, there are loads of marine, whale and conservation groups you can follow which post stories and developments. For ideas of some, check my follow lists for oceans, whales, and green/nature. You do not have to be on Twitter to see what people are saying, and you can often find websites for organizations by clicking on their @ nicknames to reach their individual pages.

Greenpeace is another organization that posts current news and offers e-petitions that can be signed and shared. These e-petitions do NOT replace direct individual contact from us to our representatives. Individual letters still hold more weight.

I keep a list here on the blog of whale research and conservation orgs. Again, it is not comprehensive but is a good start. Go to their sites, read up on their work, and support them however you can.

In the end, there are  countless matters of concern for ocean conservation: ending shark finning, establishing marine parks, ending destructive fishing methods like bottom trawling and long lining, cleaning up pollution. There are countless organizations involved in many of these causes. Use the web – find out who is working on the issues that matter to you most, and get involved. All it takes is one voice to get the ball started.

I’ve been following a lot of the stories and commentary about this latest incident of a captive orca’s killing a human trainer. Not surprisingly, that leads to having thoughts of my own.

I used to have a strong aversion to orcas, or killer whales. When I was 9 years old, I went to see a movie called Orca, a thriller. My one enduring image from the film is of a large orca surging up onto a beach, trying to grab some human(s) there. We left the movie before it was over because it was so terrifying to us. I have also once been to SeaWorld in Florida, around the same time, and seen a killer whale show, though I don’t honestly remember much about it. I knew just about nothing about the reality of orcas.

Then, as an adult with a growing interest in and passion for whales, I finally picked up a book (that I had passed over multiple time before) called “Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us” by Alexandra Morton. This is a highly engaging and accessible book which demystified orcas for me and made them much more intriguing animals. They were no longer in my head as mindless, vicious killers, but as intelligent, complicated animals. Part of the book talks about how she started by working in marine parks and then moved to study orcas in the wild as she became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea and practice of orcas in captivity.

I find that one of the things bothering me most about the coverage of this latest killer-whale-kills-human story is that almost universally it is called a killer whale, not an orca. While  I know that killer whale is a legitimate and commonly used name for this species, I feel like it is also deliberately ramping up the monster image of this particular whale, Tilikum. That he has a history of killing another trainer and having been found with another deceased human just adds to that portrayal. BUT, in the wild, there are no documented cases of a killer whale’s killing a human. There are rare stories of attacks, usually attributed to a whale’s presumed perception of a human as prey. The name “killer whale” seems to come from a mistranslation of Spanish fisherman who dubbed these whales as “whale killers” because they witnessed orcas pursuing and killing other whales.

It is a good thing that this is sparking a lot of discussion about captive large marine mammals and shows, though it is a result of an unquestionably tragic event. Captive whale shows are undoubtedly big money for marine parks. But are they really educational? What do we learn about a whale’s life in the open oceans by watching them perform tricks? It’s a pretty safe bet that wild orcas (or sea lions or dolphins etc etc) are not bouncing balls off their noses or leaping through hoops out in the wild. I am sure that some facts about orcas are conveyed through the show’s narration, but do any of them make the sort of impact which will lead to greater awareness and efforts towards conservation? (Really, if someone could tell me, I would like to know.)

Animal expert Jack Hanna chimed in today, with unwavering support for both the whale and SeaWorld. I am glad he points out that this is not the whale’s fault (what we as humans attribute to the human condition of fault, that is), but I am struck at how he names SeaWorld the world experts on killer whales. I am sure their body of knowledge is immense, and it does seem that they partner with scientists from around the world. Their site is unclear (on quick review) as to what scientists they have on staff who are out in the field. I hope they do have some because there is no way to fully understand a wide-roaming animal that is stuck in a cement tank. I am going to keep digging because I would like to know more about their work and programs overall.

I think Hanna’s saddest statement is:

“Let’s say 20, 30 years from now, there’s 200 killer whales left in the wild. Let me tell you where we’re going to go: We’re going to go to SeaWorld and see what to [do] to save this magnificent creature. That’s how valuable it is for what we’re doing with research.”

Not a single word is in this interview about conservation, or about how human activity has threatened all of the populations of all whales around the world, making this sort of captive breeding/preservation necessary in the first place.

He also said:

“Some people said they know what the whale [is] thinking. That’s impossible. I don’t know what the whale is thinking I don’t know what stress is to a whale. All I know is that SeaWorld provides the best possible care, and I’ve in been going to those parks for 30-something years. And I always seen nothing but animals that seem to be very, very happy.”

Which is it, Jack? How can it be impossible for people to know what the whale is thinking, and yet you then assert that the animals seem happy.  That strikes me as a dramatic contradiction. If you do not know what stresses the animals, can you really know if they are happy? (Maybe they are, I don’t claim to know one way or another. I’m just reacting to the mixed bag of anthropomorphism that this story is generating.)

I am glad that this whale will not be euthanized as he was acting out of instinct and not likely out of any malice, but have we also condemned him and his fellow killer whales to a life of torture caused by confinement, all for the sake of research?  I don’t know what the best answer is – there are no magically large water parks that simulate the ocean environment. There are no easy answers, period.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have done a “swim with dolphins” thing, when I was on a cruise that stopped in Cozumel. These dolphins were captive in a pen fenced off the beach, not in a cement tank, but yes, still captive. I admit that I could not resist the opportunity. I do realize now the very very mixed good/bad about doing this sort of activity. I also fully acknowledge the powerful draw of these charismatic animals which is hard to resist. Does make one wonder if dolphins think about swimming with us… (No, I don’t for one second think that they do, but it would be an interesting thing to discover, what they think of us wacky humans.)

2,000,000 – two MILLION whales – killed in the 20th century.

That’s a lot of whales. Present populations of different species vary around the world, with some like the Atlantic grey whale’s being completely gone, the Pacific grey whale and North Atlantic right whale very close to it. But two million… that was a number that made me sit up and take notice all of a sudden.  I’ve read different accounts of whaling with estimates of number killed, but never an aggregate total. Of the largest whales, populations were so drastically reduced as to result in single digit percentages (as little as 1-2% of blue whales, 5% or less of humpback whales) remaining from the original, naturally healthy and abundant populations.

Why does this hit me now? With the increased visibility and tension around the fight against whaling in the Antarctic, there are a lot of stories hitting the “wires” regarding arguments for and against whaling, measurements of existing whale populations, etc.

For example, the article which brought home that two million number draws attention to the hollow argument that the Antarctic minke whale population must be growing since there is less competition for krill, now that so many of those larger whales (humpbacks, blues…) are gone. This study finds NO evidence to support that belief. Mother Jones also writes up this information in Whaling Loses Another Flimsy Rationale.

This dovetails with the argument by some who support Japanese whaling that whales need to be killed because they are competing with humans for the fish. To that I say: poppycock! How do they reconcile this flawed thinking with the fact that before commercial whaling and overfishing, the oceans TEEMED with abundance of all. The Pew Charitable Trusts have weighed in on this, as has the Humane Society. We have overfished the oceans; humans are in the process of sucking/trawling/fishing them dry. In fact, overfishing is the single greatest threat to the health of the oceans. Recently, a bluefin tuna sold for $177,000.  They are becoming so critically endangered and yet in such great demand that they draw a high price tag. Still, despite their dwindling numbers (and probably due to the higher potential for profit), Japan resists and fights any efforts to conserve remaining bluefin tuna, calling it a threat to their iconic food. Hello!? Overfishing your iconic food is what is threatening that iconic status! Bluefin tuna are Huge, Fast and Almost Gone, but there actually has been discussion about INCREASING the number taken, rather than trying to conserve and restore their numbers. Immediate profit is overruling long term “supply”.

So basically there are just a bunch of lame excuses masquerading as reasons to kill whales, when the reality is that none of those excuses hold any merit. Frankly, I am a little perplexed as to how the comparatively small island nation of Japan is running the table on both whaling and the bluefin tuna fishery. Seems that so many countries are so afraid of their trade agreements (is there not a whole world to which potential trade can be developed?) that they simply cave to Japanese threats. New Zealand is becoming a largely more visible force to push an end to whaling, with the majority of their population wanting to stop whaling. NZ Prime Minister John Key has been alluding to a diplomatic solution. While I agree that this is probably the most likely route towards resolution, I remain cynically wary to believe that the necessary nations will stand up to Japan in the end. Until concerned nations are willing to eschew or risk their precious trade agreements for the greater good, I fear that nothing will change, whales will still be killed, and the escalating conflict in the Antarctic will also result in the loss of human life.

Two million whales have already been lost. How many more will be added to that number?

I will start by saying that I’ve long had a sort of mixed feeling about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS). For one thing, I respect people who are willing to put their lives on the line for a matter for which they feel such passion. Because this matter is whales and their survival, it’s certainly on my radar more prominently than many other conservation concerns. And I respect that people ARE willing to go to these lengths to stop whaling. I don’t think I could make the sacrifices that they do.

I also know that the SSCS can be a source of consternation for other conservation groups, too, with the mixed blessing of calling attention to an important issue but doing so in a frequently very dangerous manner. The TV show Whale Wars has certainly brought the activity of whaling before a lot more people than would have otherwise been aware of it. There’s also a very good book on the same topic, from the whaling season before the TV show began, The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals by Peter Heller. He went out with them for a season and wrote about the experience, from the perspective of relative objectivity so it’s not all “rah rah SSCS” but still with respect for them and their devotion. Through all of these avenues,  I think that SSCS is calling valuable attention to a serious issue, even though their tactics are heavy handed.

Andy Rivkin of DotEarth at the New York Times has posted a great piece about this whole event, Video Views of a Violent Clash Over Whaling. My favorite quote summarizes why it is important that someone be there to monitor the whale slaughters: “If a whale is hit by an exploding harpoon near Antarctica and the world doesn’t have a way to witness that, does it make a sound?” It can take a harpooned whale half an hour to die. Whales have been increasingly, repeatedly, shown to be sentient, feeling animals and there is no truly humane way to kill a whale. In what culture is it ok to cause such cruelty to get meat? Does that alone warrant the escalation of tactics in the Antarctic Ocean?

Greenpeace no longer sends ships down there. When they did, it was only to observe, and they did not attempt to stop the whaling, just document it. Australia and New Zealand send no ships down there to witness or monitor the whaling activities. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to witness the harpooning of whales and do nothing. So it’s understandable that the passions of the SSCS crews call for action. There’s just no clear way to draw the line for what action is “enough” or when it crosses the line into truly dangerous action that puts human lives at risk. I know that the crews of the SSCS ships are aware of the risks they face on these voyages, but I also wonder – if someone on their crew did lose a life, would it change anything? Japan has such an increasingly aggressive stance that they would likely applaud such loss and blame SSCS for whatever happened to “cause” it.  Paul Watson proudly touts how they have never lost or caused the loss of a life in these campaigns (“Paul Watson: Sea Shepherd’s Stern ‘Warrior’ Defies Japanese Whalers“) but the actions of him and his crew are razor close to leading to loss of human life. And now the whalers are demonstrating how willing they are to toe that razor thin line themselves. Is hyperbole overriding reason to the point of no return, no resolution?

Japan is notoriously resistent to Western influence on this matter. I once commented to Bill Clinton, when Hillary Clinton was running for president, that if she won the White House, to please pressure Japan to stop whaling. His response was that this was the one issue that they were really defensive about. As Philip Hoare wrote in relation to this event in Anti-Whalers Collide Over Tactics, it will take calmer heads and actions far away from the whaling grounds to finally resolve this. While the SSCS wants to hit the whalers where it hurts, in the economics of hunting, Japan has shown itself  to be consistently stubborn and has even started to drop the pretense of the “scientific” research. This is well covered in a recent editorial from Australia, Ram Raid On The High Seas, which also calls out the Australian government for  their appallingly consistent lack of actual action on the issue. It’s known that the Japanese people are fairly indifferent to the issue of whaling. Is it that they truly do not know what is happening, how much the whales suffer in the killing? I don’t want to sound too jaded, but would it matter to them if they DID know?

There’s a recent interview with the Bob Barker’s captain, Chuck Swift, which provides a sort of “in the field” look at the after effects of this event on the Ady Gil’s crew. Getting run over by a ship far more massive than your own is going to be traumatic. It’s also going to make your opponents dig their heels and fight harder. It’s just an escalating stand off.

If the Japanese people become more aware and more vocal about a resistance to this slaughter, will that be the final piece neeeded to end this cruel practice there? Greenpeace is on the ground there trying to open and change minds. I wish they were also continuing to send ships to the Antarctic, but at least something is happening in Japan. SSCS would have no luck on that front since they are reviled there.

And what will it take to also end the commercial whaling by Norway and Iceland?

Yes, I believe that whales need this war. Most successful movements for change are a result of a combination of approaches – the loud and visible to keep it on the radar, and the quieter efforts to effect change. I sincerely hope this war does not escalate to the loss of human life on either side. Another piece by someone who has been there (independently of SSCS) and tangled with the whaling ships cautions against this escalating war: Do Whales Need This War? Progressively more violent encounters put more lives at risk as well as potentially causing ecological harm to the Antarctic environment (sinking ships = fuel spills, contaminants etc. The Ady Gil was offloaded with their contaminants before it sank because there was time to do so. That’s a luxury that is rarely found especially in so unforgiving a place as the Antarctic.)

Meanwhile, stepping up the verbal-only rhetoric again, Australia told Japan to stop whaling. It’s going to take more than just SAYING it, folks, you gotta put your money where your apparent determination is. Since Japan does not even recognize Australia’s claims on the waters in which it goes whaling, I think its going to require more decisive action than just a memo and a finger wagging. Japan is “fighting back” by accusing Australian Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard of siding with SSCS because she called for calm on BOTH sides of the action (Japan Pins Whale Row on Gillard). Seems that if you are not with Japan or passively accepting heir illegal whaling, you are against them.

I have no idea what the answer is. To me, first step is for Australia to do what it has been threatening and start legal action to immediately end the whaling activities before more whales die. Then, cooler heads on ALL sides need to sit down and figure out how to end commercial whaling. That needs to include Norway and Iceland as well. It’s easy for me to sit here and say these things, thousands of miles away from any of the action. Meanwhile, I am glad SSCS is there to witness the killing and make sure we do not forget that it is going on. I just sincerely hope that things have not/do not reach a point where circumstances push tempers to where heels get dug in so deeply that nothing changes and whales keep dying.

But, fewer and fewer people are interested in eating whale meat! I’ve already written about the news that whale watching is actually more profitable (and Iceland’s bizarre response that whaling and whale watching are industries that can grow together). Since whaling IS all about profit, I just can’t wrap my head around why these whaling nations (Iceland, Norway and Japan) don’t understand the bigger numbers they can generate by putting away those harpoons for good.

Killing fewer whales is obviously good – for us, for whales, for the planet. Increasing profit as a result is simply a win-win for everyone, especially when it means that the whales are no longer threatened by commercial whaling.

While there are few actual results being reported from this year’s meeting, a lot happened during the week. Most encouraging to me was the report that whale WATCHING is actually more profitable than whale KILLING! Imagine that. What gets me is that the IWC delegate to Iceland actually made the comment that whaling and whale watching were industries that could co-exist and “grow together”. Um, what? How does one expect to see more whales if one is also killing more whales? Total lack of sensibility. And sentimentally speaking (on top of conservation concerns), I really hope that Greenland does not start killing humpbacks since the whales up there are part of the same overall population seen here off New England.

One piece of good news on the whaling front, too, was that Norway actually suspended whaling for the season, despite having killed only half of its quota, because the country’s freezers were full and there was no room for more. Hopefully this means that fewer people are eating whale meat, depressing demand. If this trend continues, whaling can truly be put in the past for the industrialized nations who continue with it.

Related to this was the recent news that the governments of Japan and Norway heavily subsidize their whaling industries. I wonder how long their citizens will stomach tax dollars supporting declining industries? If people are no eating the meat, for how long can the tax dollars go to propping up industries that are no longer independently profitable? And Japan’s claims of scientific research have long been considered weak and controversial. Since science is fast catching up and non lethal techniques are being used to find out most of the information that Japan claims can only come from dead whales, their argument gets weaker and weaker.

According to this story, outgoing IWC chair Hogarth believes fewer whales will be killed if agreements can be put in place to regulate commercial whaling. While I think I understand what he means, I really think we need to focus on really eliminating as much whaling as possible (native populations are sort of the “wild card” on that count because of subsistence reasons). With increasing evidence of the potential sentience and intelligence of whales (larger whale brains have cellular complexities found only in the brains of humans and great apes), I personally believe they need to be viewed as intelligent animals, certainly not as dead profit centers. If it really is all about making money, then billions of dollars a year watching live whales should be a pretty significant reason not to kill them. IMNSHO, of course.