My OperaWhaling
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 4:37:19 PM
In the modern life, there are many urgent problems that force humans to find the solution. These are the problems about pollution, environment, population, global warming,…And one of the alarming troubles to human being is the life of species in the ocean. When mentioning marine life, everyone wonders why blue whales have to face to imminent extinction. They don’t understand that because they think that blues whales have an enormous amount and their size and speed are also giant that makes them exist forever. Blue Whales are not easy to catch or kill, so people have used modern technology to kill blue whales. For example, in 1864 the Norwegian-Svend Foyn equipped a steamboat with harpoons specifically designed for catching large whales. Foyn perfected the harpoon gun, and soon several whaling stations were established on the coast of Finnmark in northern .Whaling activities of human beings has had the strong effect to existence of blue whales. They were intensively hunted in 20th century in all the world’s oceans and their population significantly reduced. According to statistics of Office Of Protected Resources NOAA Fisheries, at least 9500 blue whales were taken by commercial whaler throughout the North Pacific between 1910 and 1965, at least 11000 were taken in the North Atlantic from the late 19th to middle 20th centuries. Moreover, there are more than 36000 blue whales were taken by whaling fleets in the Southern Hemisphere from 1904 to 1967, more than 8000 pygmy blue whales were killed by Soviet whaling fleets in the 1960s and 1970s (according to EDGE community- Evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered). And whaling happened in many other areas that make that the species was pushed to the edge of extinction. To prevent the risk of extinction, the International Whaling Commission has promulgated the law banning blue whale hunting. Ignoring that law, some countries still continue hunting blue whales. So, a necessary issue currently is everyone needs to condemn the action of illegal whaling and try to conserve blue whales as well as many other species.
