Humans are animals.
All animals have to kill to survive.
With little farmland, Icelanders cling to a thin rind of coastline, looking ever seaward for sustenance. When I ask the gentleman at the airport why it was, then, that there used to be a lot of fish when there also used to be a lot of whales, he accuses me of being a Greenpeace agitator. For years fishery scientists have promoted calculations that whales eat five million tons of fish a year that could be going into fishing nets instead. In spite of the rhetoric, those worried that Keiko will be released only to relive another Free Willy movie scenario and face a deadly harpoon have little to fear. Prime Minister David Oddson finally agreed to let Keiko come only when business leaders convinced him that on the world tourism market, Iceland's whales are worth far more alive than dead.