Save the Whales! It's like the catch phrase of the Animal Rights and Conservation movements. And we should save the whales right? They're endangered aren't they?
Now don't get me wrong there are good reason's to be anti-whaling. It does take a whale around half an hour to die when its caught. But are they actually endangered?
Well some are that's for sure. The Sei and Blue whales are both considered endangered by the IUCN, but they aren't typically the kind that people go whaling for. The Japanese scientific whalers target Minke whales. A species listed as least concern on the IUCN redlist. Yet we are all terribly concerned with them taking them out of what are international waters.
How exactly is the Japanese whalers any different to any other person who hunts for a non-endangered species. Here in Australia will kill eastern grey kangaroos by the thousands for commercial use, and we become very defensive if anyone should criticize us for doing so.
Like I said I am certainly not pro-whaling. However, I just feel that before we get up on our high horses about the issue, we should perhaps look a little closer to home at conservation or animal rights issues that could use our attention more instead of jumping on the bandwagon.
Organisations that have large anti-whaling campaigns are very good at manipulating the public. They highlight the fact that whales are endangered (though like I already said, not these ones) or they make stories about caring mothers and their helpless young.
Maybe we should try to not be manipulated so easily, and actually look into an issue before we take offense to it. Anyone remember Bonsai Kittens?
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