They will still kill many whales, so we could look at the savior of the humpback in 2 ways – firstly, it is fantastic that the humpback will not be hunted this year, and secondly, does it actually make us think differently of the Japanese hunt? Personally – No.

Saving the humpback is most likely what we call a ‘token gesture’ or a diversion tactic to make us think better of the hunt.

The article is listed here.

Hunting of whales for food, oil, or both. Whaling dates to prehistoric times, when Arctic peoples used stone tools to hunt whales. They used the entire animal, a feat not accomplished by Western commercial whalers until the advent of floating factories in the 20th century. The Basque were the first Europeans to hunt whales commercially; when seaworthy oceangoing vessels began to be made, they took to the open seas (14th – 16th century). They were followed by the Dutch and the Germans in the 17th century and the British and their colonists in the 18th century. In 1712 the first sperm whale was killed; its oil proved more valuable than that of the right whale, which had hitherto been the object of whaling ventures. Whaling expeditions in pursuit of the free-ranging sperm whale could last for four years. The discovery of petroleum (1859), overfishing, the use of vegetable oil, and the substitution of steel for whalebones in corsets led to a steep decline in whaling in the later 19th century, but Norwegian innovations made hunting the hitherto “wrong” whales (rorquals, including the blue whale and the sei whale; so called because they sank when killed) commercially feasible, and the number of whales killed rose from under 2,000 to over 20,000 between 1900 and 1911. The Norwegians and the British dominated whaling into the mid 20th century, when overfishing again made it unprofitable for most nations, though not Japan and the Soviet Union, which became the chief whaling nations. Concern over the near extinction of many species led to the establishment in 1946 of the International Whaling Commission. Commercial whaling was prohibited altogether in 1986, but several nations refused to comply. At the beginning of the 21st century, Norway and Japan continued to hunt hundreds of nonendangered whales annually.

The people who did whaling are
Norway
Britain
Japan
Egypt
Soviet Union
Germany

The people who whale now are
Japan
Norway

Well written response Hannah. You are doing a great job at expressing your opinions, and will be able to back up your ideas with other expert opinions/information in future arguments and discussions.

All of our class members are doing a great job at expressing their ideas. Well done!

Brittany has a great link to a Greenpeace ship and crew that is on its way to where the Japanese boats are to begin hunting. Make sure you save it as a favourite and visit it regulary.You may even be able to leave a post for the crew members there.

Be sure to check the videos.

How can you people help prevent whaling?? You can click the banner link under the whale hunting picture and read Greenpeace’s ideas – are there other ways as well?

No, I think it is not okay to hunt whales even if it is part of a strong culture. I think this because cultures can be changed as the world is changing to and soon some traditions may not be able to be done, and they may not be as suitable as they used to be.

People who do have whaling as part of their culture should still follow the same rules, laws and carry the same responsibilities in making our world a better place. People should try and make the world have more animals instead of making it have less to gain more for yourself.

The people who do whaling are only trying to get money and gain more for themselves, but to get more money they are stealing away something’s life and that should be a crime to take away something’s life and not do a good thing back to what they have destroyed.

Finally I conclude that whales should not be killed even if it is cultural for some places, as they are getting extinct and people should sacrifice something to prevent the whale’s extinction, as it would be a bad loss to lose such a beautiful creature.

Yours sincerely,

Hannah

Well I think that the Japanese are being selfish, because they can just catch fish but they have to catch whales.

The only point of killing whales is to get money; whales are the most paid meat.

I think whale hunting should be stopped, and I think that it is very brave of the Green Peace to try and stop the Japanese. I really hope that the Green Peace stop Whale hunting once and for all!

-Eden-

did you know that in the stone age 2 boats would have one man with a spear and at the same time they would jump at the whale and try and spear it this is from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=465987&in_page_id=1811

today as I said in the first paragragh that the japanese hunt loads of whales every year and the govoment lets them because they say it is for reseach but it is not!!!!!!!!!!!

I could not find other cultures but I will keep looking
bye
jock

I think that hunting whales should be stopped
Some whales may become extinct quicker than others. This is a chart that I found from this website.www.ypte.org.uk/docs/factsheets/env_facts/saving_the_whales.html

Endangered
1. Blue whale
2. Right Whale
3. Humpback Whale
Vulnerable
4. Grey Whale
5. Sperm Whale
6. Fin Whale
Not Threatened
7. Minke Whale
8. Narwhal
9. Beluga Whale
Not Known
10. Orca (killer whale)
11. Pilot whale

Until a few hundred years ago there were hundreds of thousands of whales in the ocean. Humans had hunted them but did not take enough to affect whale populations until around the 15th and 16th century when whales were hunted on a large scale. Whales were mainly killed for their blubber which is the thick fatty layer under the whales skin which could be melted down into oils for candles and lamps.

By the 1930’s whale factories working in the Antarctic waters were taking up to nearly 50,000 whales a year. In 1988, commercial whaling was banned. Some whales take a long time to breed so this is also why they may become extinct.

Another fact, Japanese people used to see whale meat as a cheap source of protein when there wasn’t much food after the end of world war II.

I have also found another really interesting website it is called the age education
http://www.education.theage.com.au/pagedetail.asp?strsection=students&intsectionid=0
this may get updated so I will print a copy.

this is another website but it is a blog from Greenpeace and some of the people that have posted are actually on the ship which is following the Japanese ships on their journey south. http://weblog.greenpeace.org/whales/?MM_URL=bloglinkfrombanner

Brittany

I think that the Japanese are being very heartless toward the whales because they say that they are doing this for “scientific research” where you only need 1 whale when they are trying to take about 1’000 times more and also whale meat has been appearing in Japanese butchers, probably because it is very expensive meat.
The “scientific research” was to collect data on the age and “mode of life” of Antarctic whales. The Japanese are hoping to kill 850-900 Minke increasing 70% from last season, but for the first time in 40 years the whalers harpoons will be killing Humpbacks and Fin whales, species beloved of whale watchers.

In the past Alaskan Inuit, European whalers and Eskimos have hunted whales and Iceland and Japan are still doing this!

Hamish

In the past a lot of countries actually sadly hunted whales and they hunted a lot of types of whales.
Canada hunted them; Greenland also hunted the poor whales, the Caribbean, Iceland hunted them, Indonesia hunted them, Japan, Norway, Russia, US and us New Zealand.
This is mostly why whales are becoming extinct because all of these countries used to go out whaling.

Sadly there are still some countries that go out whaling every few days, unlike New Zealand who stopped whaling forty-three years ago.
One of the countries that are still whaling are Japan, over the past decade they have killed over eight thousand whales this means that the whales are becoming more extinct each time a whaling ship goes out.
The Japanese government has asked them to stop and they have replied “we will stop when they are becoming extinct” which would mean that their would only be about one whale left in the whole ocean.

Even though this is a tradition for many cultures I still don’t think that they should be able to go out whaling every few day or so, I think the population of whales would be better if the whaling ships were only able to go out once a year and could only go out and catch one to three whales per country, since Japan is one of the only countries that go out and catch whales they would only be able to catch one whale per year and if they went over the limit they would get a fine from the Japanese government.
- Ella-