the Japanese should not hunt whales

1. It's illegal The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986. However, Japan's government-sponsored Institute for Cetacean Research, under the guise of "scientific research," kills approximately "1,000 whales in the Arctic annually." [1] The Japanese claim that they need tissue samples from the whales to track pod size and migration patterns. However, true marine scientists would use methods like tagging and examining feces to study the whales, instead of killing them. In addition, the sheer scale of the killing is far beyond what is necessary to sustain scientific research. Lastly, much of the whale meat ends up on commercial markets, invalidating the Institute's claims. In fact, Japan hunts so many whales that there is not enough demand for the meat to meet the supply. This is a classic example of why subsidized industries are bad – they overproduce. 2. Whale meat tastes gross Japanese has tried really hard to get people to eat whale meat – it gives whale burgers to children in school lunches and it hands out pamphlets singing the praises of the meat as a "national heritage." However, the Chicago-Sun Tribune reports that "Tokyo has a dilemma: By rapidly expanding its whale hunt, Japan kills more of the giant mammals than its consumers care to eat. The result is an unprecedented glut of whale meat. Prices -- once about $15 a pound -- are plunging, inventories are bursting and promoters are scrambling to get Japanese to eat more whale. It's a tough sell. ‘To put it simply, whale meat tastes horrible,' said 30-year-old Kosuke Nakamura, one of the diners at a Hana No Mai restaurant in Tokyo." [2] The price has fallen to as low as one third of the traditional price, and Japan is increasingly resorting to forcing children to eat the meat in school lunches because when given a choice, no one wants the meat. Change.org's section on Sustainable Food reports that "the Institute of Cetacean Research sold its whale meat to local municipalities at one-third of the traditional market price. The Institute and Japan's Fisheries Agency continue to hawk their discounted whale meat to schools and medical institutions, a sign that the general public is just not interested in the meat." [3] 3. Mercury poisoning Rachel Carson's seminal work on DDT in her book Silent Spring exposed something called biomagnification, a biological rule that species higher up the food chain will have higher concentrations of toxins than species lower down. If a certain type of fish contains mercury, for example, and a dolphin eats thousands of those fish each year, the dolphin will have much higher levels of mercury. Since the whale is quite far up the food chain, it has higher mercury levels than even swordfish, which, in the U.S. market, is considered to have the highest levels. The fact that Japan mostly forces children, who are most at risk for mercury toxicity-related problems (like stunted brain development), to eat the whale meat is a scary trend. Change.org continues, "According to a survey released on Saturday, since 2005, Japan's increasingly put whale meat back on school lunch menu . . . All that whale meat comes with a pretty deadly marinade — mercury. Large marine species like whales and dolphins contain astronomical levels of mercury, even more so than big fish like bluefin tuna, which frequently appear on seafood guides' ‘Avoid' list." 4. Bad for the whales Whaling is pretty inhumane – according to The Times (UK), the Japanese use explosive harpoons that blow a huge chunk out of the whales, after which they bleed to death after approximately 15 minutes. [4] Dr. Harry Little, a ship physician on a whaling expedition, describes the killing process as follows, "If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck into its stomach and being made to pull a butcher's truck through the streets of London while it pours blood in the gutter, we shall have an idea of the present method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream the industry would stop, for nobody would be able to stand it." [5] Many whales are now an endangered species because of whaling. EcoKids reports that 7 of 11 whale species are now endangered. [6] Theoretically, Japan is supposed to hunt the non-endangered whales, but a recent documentary –called The Cove - uncovered illegally sold Japanese whale meat in a sushi restaurant in California. [7] Using DNA testing, Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center found that the meat was from an endangered species of whale. [8] Whales have an extremely slow reproductive rate, considering that females give birth to only one calf at a time and the "pregnancy" lasts up to 16 months. [9] Fish Update explains the unique challenges that this long reproductive cycle poses to whale conservation. "Populations of nearly all the great whales remain at depressed levels, a legacy of the unsustainable whaling during the last two centuries. As long-lived mammals with slow reproductive cycles whales inevitably take several decades or more to recover from population depletion while some populations still survive as a few hundred individuals at the brink of extinction." [10] In conclusion, the Japanese should not engage in whaling because they are in violation of international law, no one wants the whale meat, the children forced to eat the meat are in danger of mercury poisoning, the killing method is grotesque, and the whales are in danger of going extinct. [1] http://news.blogs.cnn.com... [2] http://www.highbeam.com... [3] http://food.change.org... [4] http://www.timesonline.co.uk... [5] http://www.mywhaleweb.com... [6] http://www.ecokids.ca... [7] http://www.wired.com... [8] http://www.usnews.com... [9] http://www.whale-world.com... [10] http://www.illegal-fishing.info...