Whaling Persuasive Research Paper

Imagine you are swimming in the ocean minding your own business. Then, suddenly, something sharp hits you. It enters your body and explodes. The pain is killing, but it does not kill you, not yet. Again a sharp object hits you and explodes. Again and again you are hit. Your enormous body, however, does not give up that easily. It will take more than a half an hour to get unconscious. Maybe, if you are lucky, you will drown. Perhaps you will be dragged on a ship. Even though you are still conscious and in great agony, you will be cut up into pieces. This is the fate of hundreds of whales every year. Although many countries such as Japan and Norway continue to hunt whales for their byproducts and scientific research, whaling should be outlawed

The hunting of whales by man is thousands of years old, but it became an important industry during the nineteenth century, when industrialization and urbanization created a demand for the lighting oil which could be produced from whale blubber. The demand for oil drove the whaling industry until the development of petroleum oil in the late nineteenth century, but whaling for meat continued. The increasing scarcity of many whale species, together with the growing recognition of the intelligence and social nature of whales, led to calls for the regulation of whale hunting and the creation of the International Whaling Commission. Effective from 1986, the IWC introduced a ban on whaling which placed a moratorium on commercial whaling. Under the guise of scientist research, countries such as Japan continue to hunt more whales than can be justified by the needs of scientific inquiry. Whaling fleets killed “an estimated 1 million sperm whales between the 18th and 20th century and hundreds and thousands of almost every type of baleen wales such as the right and bowhead whales” (McLendon). Bowheads have been hunted for nearly 400 years, eventually reducing their population to about 8% of its prewhaling average. The North Atlantic right whale now numbers around 300, and the population is nearly extinct. The decimating population of various species of whales will have fatal effects

According to the IWC, it is important “use scientific research on whales in order to collect information such as age, population size and structure, and demographics.” The IWC placed a moratorium has put a ban on commercial whale hunting, but it still approves of whale hunting for scientific reasons. Modern techniques, however, do not require killing a whale in order to learn about its biology and behavior. Scientists can use a special small projectile to gather samples of skin tissue and blubber from whales. These projectiles only hit the skin of the whale and is therefore less harmful than the use of an exploding harpoon (Hayes). From these skin and blubber samples, lipid and nucleic analysis can be obtained in order to research a whale`s age and sex. Scientists can also examine the thousands of whales that are washed ashore every year. Although there are many nonlethal alternatives to research a whale, countries continue to use the loophole of scientific research in order to kill whale’s species that are