A 1200 year tradition of killing. How long will we continue to look on and then look the other way?

You might think a comment like that came from the days when Rome sent Christians to their deaths in the arena.

A tradition that has occurred for over 1200 years?

Justice is really blind, now that a U.S. Federal Court Judge, Richard A. Jones, is willing to listen to a frivilous lawsuit filed by the Japanese to stop the Sea Shepherd from its activities to hinder the Japanese from their so called "scientific research".

In a recent Associated Press release, The Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean (Whale) Research along with a few other countries are seeking to get a U.S. federal court to order the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to cease disrupting its whaling activities in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.

What is amazing to me that a U.S. federal judge is willing to hear Japan’s whaling argument or even allow it into the federal court system. Why? Consider the fact that our own President was supposed to take the side of anti-whaling, based on his initial campaign promises.

But, as we have seen, no sanctions – other than a letter – have been written and authorized by the President – and sent to the Faroe Islands, which somehow is supposed to tell them to “stop whaling”.

It is kind of like the recent spy plane recovery. A several trillion dollar spy plane is downed in Iran. Instead of destroying or recovering it, Obama felt that we could just get it back by asking for it. Well, it will be returned – in pieces!

Read the rest of this entry »

Some times I amazed at the press and their PR antics.

You see this all too often. Sensationalism done for notoriety's sake.

Earlier this week, a YouTube video caught the eyes of people all over the internet world. The video captured two things if you look closely: the creation of a ‘bubble net’ used by Humpback whales to corral fish they are about to eat, and then the actual surfacing, or breaching, of Humpback whales between two kayakers and a woman on a paddle board.

It was a rare shot and actually a good one. But then the Press loves controversy:

“Woman Almost Swallowed by Whale!”

Well, sort of. Nearly doesn’t really say that she was swallowed. But anyone reading the headline bites the proverbial lie and goes to the site where such an untruth has been dealt. Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent blog from the New York Times, a “cushioned warning” has been recorded about whales,

made by President Obama against Iceland.

The warning is tantamount to saying how much the budget was cut, when in reality nothing was really “cut”.

This is a portion of the blog regarding whaling is what I want to focus on:

In a move hailed by conservation activists, President Barack Obama initiated potential diplomatic sanctions against Iceland this week for its commercial whaling activity. The sanctions include six measures ranging from possibly limiting cabinet-level visits to Iceland to limiting cooperation with Iceland in the Arctic region. Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, the Faroe Vikings are at it again.

Captain Paul Watson and a few f his crew of the Sea Shepherd. Photo courtesy Fotopedia

” Paul Watson, captain and marine activist arrived in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s vessel, The Brigitte Bardot, to Torshvan harbor earlier in the week, creating a media frenzy in the small Nordic village bound by the cruel custom of killing in the name of culture. Local villagers showed up to oppose Sea Shepherd’s presence by offering local whale meat to the little girl and bystanders. However, the youngster refused stating, “No thank you. I don’t eat my friends.”

“Later in the week, members of the Sea Shepherd crew unveiled a mass underwater dumping ground of whale carcasses, further pointing to the large amount of waste that surrounds the sporadic hunting episodes of the socially complex marine mammals, which are listed as “strictly protected” under the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, also known as The Berne Convention. Read the rest of this entry »

There are so many things that a culture brings to the modeling of an individual.

And I think if the culture were to maintain its ethnic history and activities without the aid of technology, then traditions could be carried on without conscience or lack of integrity.

When advanced technology and knowledge makes its way into any culture, however, there is a blending that must and does occur.

And along with that blending of culture and technology, decisions must be made which affects one’s life as one moves forward with that new knowledge.

That new knowledge does not have to negate the old.

At a very basic level, if your life changes from a subsistence style life to a more modern approach, it becomes less of a need to go out and hunt. However, with today’s technology, hunting whales, fish and mammals can be done at a massive rate and in some cases, to the point of extinction.

More advanced countries, like Japan, in recent years, have become technically proficient at killing fish and whales in incredible numbers.

A population of more than 125 million, Japan consumes better than 33 percent of the seafood in the world. And as such they have encroached other countries and are contributing to depleting the ocean’s resources. And for that reason (among others), sanctions are being brought upon them based on their consumption that affects smaller populations such as the Inuit. And with those sanctions labeling connections to the Inuit are made such as animal cruelty and on the flip side, pollution and the depletion of marine resources.

In Iceland, specifically the Faroe Islands,  fin whales are corralled in a tight cove for young men to wade out into less than waist high water and slaughter defenseless whales as a test of “manhood”. Why not giving a young man a knife, food for a week and to brave the blizzard and to kill a kodiak? Wading out in water and killing small whales at your feet is like walking into a pen of puppies and opening up on them with a small handgun. Somehow that is supposed to make you “a man”. Somehow it is supposed to make you and your parents proud.

And for that reason governments and anti-whaling activists include the Inuit.

Labels are giving to this proud and resilient race which have survived freezing temperatures and little food. But today, Inuits have taken on the more modern approach to living and honestly no longer need to hunt endangered whales for the reason of survival alone.

On the scientific side, whales are being discovered to be sentient creatures and having many social traits like our own,

among many other things. More and more whales are becoming less of a food source and more of a friend. A creature with intelligence considered second only to us. And yet we have just begun to understand them. The recent discoveries are amazing: the training of their young, the use of neutrino waves to communicate at long distances, the transformation of their feces that becomes a nutrient rich mixture that converts nitrogen into for microscopic animals and begins the food chain.

If men live only by the land and that is how they survive, I can understand the taking of animals to live. That is how the animal kingdom does it. But where a culture changes and no longer relies on subsistence day-to-day, I think that life style needs to be reviewed and honestly.

We have made many wrongs as a species, such as slavery and the extinction of other races that do not agree with our way of thinking. And yet, there comes a time, when our knowledge for survival allows us to survive way beyond our needs. It is then that we have to become the caretakers of this very small planet and realize the delicate balance of life. It does not mean that we pay less respect for the old ways, but pave the way for the new. And find a way to keep certain traditions alive, which teach our children the value of living and our commonality with all life.