History of Whaling
"The history
of whaling
is a very sad history..."
Whales are smart animals with a complex social system, friendly nature towards us as well as their family and group members, and an ability to feel sad and sorry to a point where they follow sick group members to beaches, ending up getting stranded themselves. It is very sad that up to about 90% of whales in many species had to experience so much human cruelty.
The Oldest History of Whaling
History of Whaling in 1200s - 1800s
Whaling started first being commercial in Europe. Basque people from northern Spain were the first people who started trading whale products in 1200s. They mostly hunted right whales - they were easy to catch being slow moving, travelling in pods, and floating after being killed. By the 15th century, whale hunters started noticing that the whales became more and more rare. Meanwhile, other countries in Europe had also started whaling. The practice was brought to America with British settlers and later to other parts of the world with colonists. In these old days, whaling was still a dangerous practice. Fighting the whales from small canoes was often a battle that could end in either way.
History of Whaling in 1900s
But with the advancing techniques and larger ships whales soon became helpless. The scale of whaling accelerated in 1900s to a point where factory ships were invented where whales were processed on the ships. By the mid-1900s the vast majority of the world's whales had been killed. In 1970s people started to oppose themselves to whaling. This was thanks to media efforts by broadcasting news about how the whales were slaughtered, publishing statistics about how drastically the populations had decreased, and playing recorded whale songs on radio which made people realize these animals had brains and feelings. They weren't primitive fish but warm-blooded mammals like ourselves, with an understanding about their surroundings, and a right to live free from horrors.
International Whaling Commission
In 1949, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established, originally to make whaling sustainable. In later years though, many anti-whaling countries, which are not focussing on keeping whale populations sustainable for future hunting, but simply want to stop whaling as such, have joined the organisation. IWC, however, is not an effective protection to whales since its rules don't act as international laws. Their rules have to be followed by member countries only, and the membership is voluntary - any country can withdraw themselves from the membership any time.
Modern History of Whaling
Commercial whaling is now illegal. Whaling by indigenous people, and whaling for scientific research, however, are legal albeit restricted to limited numbers. The countries that still practice whaling today include Norway, Japan, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and (the indigenous people of) Canada, the US and Russia (far east Siberia). Japan particularly stresses that they do it for research. It is interesting though that now as the commercial whaling is illegal, the countries that are so eager to "do research", are the countries whose traditional diet includes whales. In other words, we all know they do some research to be able to continue to kill and eat the whales.
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Inuit Whaling
Whaling in America
Albany Whaling
Whaling in Iceland
Norwegian Whaling
Whaling in Japan
