Why are advanced countries still whaling?
Key Word
- hacktivist 激進駭客
- baffle 困惑
- are opposed to 反對
- justification 合理化說詞
- sustainable 永續的
- minke whale 小須鯨
- fin whale長鬚鯨
A “hacktivist" group recently took down many Icelandic government websites, in protest at the country’s practice of whaling.
In fact, Iceland is not the only country that still practices whaling: Japan and Norway also do so. This often baffles people from elsewhere. We wonder why are the countries still whaling if most counties are opposed to it.
Iceland’s whalers are legally allowed to hunt 154 fin whales and 229 minke whales. Icelanders usually offer two justifications. First, there are too many whales in the ocean and they eat all the fish. Second, Icelanders do not eat whale meat: it is the tourists that do that.
That first claim is arguable. The second is largely true. According to an official report, 35-40% of visitors to Iceland eat whale meat. And minke whales are found in all of the world’s oceans. There are over 100,000 minke whales in the wild. And although Fin whales are an endangered species based on the remaining number of them around the world, the fin whale population in North Atlantic is considered healthy. For that reason, hunting fin whales around Iceland is not a conservation threat. So, to Icelandic whalers, when they talk about whaling, they talk about whaling a particular population, not a species.
Whaling is a long tradition in Iceland and Icelanders think that they can use marine resources, as long as they do it in a sustainable and responsible way. The Japanese and Norwegian governments take a similar attitude towards whaling.
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