{"id":18358,"date":"2018-09-12T14:06:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T12:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=18358"},"modified":"2021-12-01T13:51:28","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T12:51:28","slug":"10-reasons-to-not-kill-whales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/18358\/10-reasons-to-not-kill-whales\/","title":{"rendered":"10 good reasons to not kill whales (as if you needed them)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Killing whales for food has been happening for millennia. But it was commercial whaling \u2013 turning whales into barrels of oil for profit \u2013 that led to the wholesale destruction of most of the world\u2019s populations of big whales. The loss of whales from our oceans is the same story as overfishing of big fish \u2013 sharks, tuna, cod and others. It\u2019s a tragedy for the species and has immense knock on effects across the ocean. We know that whales are important for the oceans, and we know that as long-lived, slow-growing animals they are much more susceptible to overfishing than actual fish.<\/p>\n

\"Vast

Whale illustrations created and donated by Joseph Catimbang from Pentasticarts.<\/p><\/div>\n

There is some good news for whales. We have seen many populations showing signs of recovery since hunting was stopped. Whales are being found in greater numbers and seem to be reclaiming habitats they had been hunted out of for decades, if not centuries. But, in the same way that recovering fish stocks generate cries of, \u201cLet\u2019s catch more because we can!\u2019 from the fishing industry, the question now is: are some whales so numerous they can be hunted?<\/p>\n

Well, here are ten reasons why they\u00a0should not<\/strong>\u00a0be:<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong>\u00a0We don\u2019t know how well whales are recovering, because we don\u2019t know how many there once were<\/a> or \u2018should be\u2019.<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong>\u00a0We are still learning about whales. Amazingly \u2018new\u2019 species like the dwarf pygmy whale, Omura\u2019s whale<\/a>, and species of beaked whale<\/a> have only been discovered in the last few decades.<\/p>\n

3)<\/strong>\u00a0We now know that some whales have and teach forms of \u2018culture<\/a>\u2019 to their calves, including humpbacks\u2019 songs and orcas\u2019 feeding strategies. \u00a0Whaling could have more impact on populations than sheer numbers.<\/p>\n

\"Beaked

A pod of beaked whales rest in the warm waters of the equator.<\/p><\/div>\n

4) <\/strong>Whales are necessary for healthy oceans<\/a>, mixing, distributing nutrients and helping deal with the impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n

5)\u00a0<\/strong>Whales are full of persistent toxins<\/a>, like mercury and PCBs. As long-lived and slow-growing animals they \u2018bioaccumulate\u2019 these in their blubber. This causes them problems when fighting disease and breeding, and can also makes them toxic if eaten.<\/p>\n

6)\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2019re already killing whales indirectly every day \u2013 including ship strikes<\/a>, fisheries entanglement<\/a>, military<\/a> & seismic blasting<\/a>. \u00a0We are also displacing whales more and more, by industrial developments, destroying habitats, and filling the ocean with noise.<\/p>\n

\"No

Greenpeace activists have mounted in front of Pantheon, in the centre of Rome, a reproduction of two whales. Greenpeace asks to reduce the production of single-use plastics.<\/p><\/div>\n

7)<\/strong>\u00a0Whales don\u2019t understand national boundaries, and most species migrate <\/a>in and out of different countries\u2019 waters. This means that while one nation may not hunt them, another, in different national waters might.<\/p>\n

8)\u00a0<\/strong>We don\u2019t know what the ongoing impacts of climate change on ocean life, including whales<\/a> and their prey, will be.<\/p>\n

9)<\/strong> Commercial whaling,<\/a> as with commercial hunting of virtually every large mammal or fish species, has inevitably led to over-exploitation.<\/p>\n

\"Gray

A gray whale breaches in Laguna San Ignacio, Mexico.<\/p><\/div>\n

10)<\/strong>\u00a0We simply don\u2019t need to. Commercial whaling in its heyday was about oil production, not meat production. There is no demand for whale meat<\/a> \u2013 and even where whale meat is sold to be eaten it\u2019s a peripheral, small and declining industry that makes no economic sense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whales today live in degraded oceans, depleted and fractured populations, and face a growing barrage of human threats. Given all of that we have to treat any notion of \u2018recovery\u2019 in an extremely precautionary way.<\/p>\n

Commercial whaling is the one human threat to whales we can, and should, simply consign to history \u2013 the world\u2019s remaining whale populations have enough to contend with. So let\u2019s get on with talking about whale conservation instead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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We know that whales are important for the oceans, and we know that as long-lived, slow-growing animals they are much more susceptible to overfishing than actual fish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":18364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[100,70],"tags":[85],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-18358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about","category-nature","tag-oceans","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18358"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51292,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18358\/revisions\/51292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18358"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=18358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}