Jerry Li
Mrs. Kimpton
English IV, Period 5/6
27 October 2015
Drop the Harpoon and Save the World When talking about whaling in the ocean, people generally attribute it to adventurous, or even heroic, images of brave sailors chasing those gigantic marine creatures in the stormy seas with harpoons in their hands. Whaling plays an important role in the long history of human beings. It persists until today in many cultures as a tradition. However, years of hunting have pushed the whales on the edge of extinction. Strict protection legislations are desperately needed to save this species. The history of whaling can be traced back to the earliest human society. The early people of Korea were hunting whales as far back as 5000 BC, and those of Norway began whaling at least 4,000 years ago. Various peoples living in the North Western American coast and the Arctic have a long tradition of whaling (The Columbia Encyclopedia). In these societies where agriculture was unable to support the population, whaling used to be the major source of …show more content…
While some nations claimed that the amounts of whale they killed are not harmful to the entire whale population, the facts turn out to be the opposite. The data of IWC given by the whaling records shows that the current number of humpback whales in North Atlantic is about 10,000, compared to its historic high 20,000 (Shwartz). But the research of geneticists from Stanford and Harvard University after comparing the DNA of 188 humpback whales concluded that the historic high before the modern whaling industry is 10 times more than the estimate of IWC (Shwartz). The math is simple. If the estimates provided by the research are true, the humpback whale population has suffered a decline over 90% with in 150 years of modern whaling industry. With this speed, the loss of whales is impossible to recover through natural reproduction. A halt of whaling production should be immediately
Mrs. Kimpton
English IV, Period 5/6
27 October 2015
Drop the Harpoon and Save the World When talking about whaling in the ocean, people generally attribute it to adventurous, or even heroic, images of brave sailors chasing those gigantic marine creatures in the stormy seas with harpoons in their hands. Whaling plays an important role in the long history of human beings. It persists until today in many cultures as a tradition. However, years of hunting have pushed the whales on the edge of extinction. Strict protection legislations are desperately needed to save this species. The history of whaling can be traced back to the earliest human society. The early people of Korea were hunting whales as far back as 5000 BC, and those of Norway began whaling at least 4,000 years ago. Various peoples living in the North Western American coast and the Arctic have a long tradition of whaling (The Columbia Encyclopedia). In these societies where agriculture was unable to support the population, whaling used to be the major source of …show more content…
While some nations claimed that the amounts of whale they killed are not harmful to the entire whale population, the facts turn out to be the opposite. The data of IWC given by the whaling records shows that the current number of humpback whales in North Atlantic is about 10,000, compared to its historic high 20,000 (Shwartz). But the research of geneticists from Stanford and Harvard University after comparing the DNA of 188 humpback whales concluded that the historic high before the modern whaling industry is 10 times more than the estimate of IWC (Shwartz). The math is simple. If the estimates provided by the research are true, the humpback whale population has suffered a decline over 90% with in 150 years of modern whaling industry. With this speed, the loss of whales is impossible to recover through natural reproduction. A halt of whaling production should be immediately