I think part of the trouble is that migratory species of animals do not ‘belong’ to any one individual country. Countries will always have differences of opinion; therefore all migratory species should be off-limits to hunters.
Whales don’t technically belong to Iceland, Australia, New Zealand or anyone else. And that’s just one of the reasons that they should be spared… because if Icelandic whalers can claim that the whales are ‘theirs’ to do with as they please, then Tongans too can claim that whales are born in Tongan waters and are therefore more ‘Tongan’ than ‘Icelandic’.
I’ve noticed that Icelanders keep referring to chickens, goats, cows and pigs. But none of those animals really migrate, do they? No. They do not cross vast oceans from one side of the planet to the other. Here’s my second point and it doesn’t have anything to do with factory farming, killing chickens, fish, goats, cows or pigs. Let’s forget Iceland for a moment for this analogy to be a bit more objective…
Can you see how if any country (X) started to hunt Japanese cranes in ‘Japanese’ air space that that would annoy Japan? As you know, migratory cranes are endangered. They are also very special to Japanese people in their culture and believed to bring good luck. They have a tradition of folding 1000 cranes. Now just imagine that country X goes there and kills a lot of them. The poor birds take a long time to die and suffer immensely at the time of death. Now imagine that ALL the other countries were totally against country X hunting cranes but they still kept doing it. And now just imagine that country X says to Japan: “no, but it’s okay, we’re hunting them sustainably, we only catch 333 per year.”
Can you see how much HATE that would create in Japan towards country X?
So that is basically the equivalent of what you are still doing in Iceland, Japan and Norway. And don’t get me started on what they do to whales in the Faroe Islands…!! Please, tell me you don’t agree with that too, children watching the bay turn red in a sea of whale blood and sitting on top of whale carcasses?!!!
From our persppective, you might as well be hunting snow leopards, black rhinoceroses or giraffes! All of these magnificent creatures hold the same high value for the rest of the countries in the world.
I have had signatures on my whale petitions —not just from Europe and the Pacific— but also many obscure and varied countries including: Wallis and Futuna, Trinidad and Tobago, Swaziland, Vanuatu, Brazil, Israel, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Czech Republic, Solvakia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Singapore, Greece, Phillipines, Portugal, Poland, Ireland, Argentina, South Africa, Bouvet Island, India, Hong Kong, Finland, France, Nepal, Netherlands and of course Japan, Norway and Iceland too!!
As far as we are concerned, you shouldn’t even be hunting ONE whale, let alone killing hundreds of them! We’re outraged! That’s the only way to decribe it. Outraged!
I’m starting to think we should put an image of a whale on our Australian flag. And then you might see how important it is to US not to kill them. And where are whales born? Many whales are born closer to Australian waters than Icelandic ones. Tonga is one of the best whale watching countries in the world. Many species of whales go there to give birth to their [live] young.
It seems to me that it is not us that is behaving selfishly, but rather three or four very stubborn countries. Even Russia doesn’t hunt whales! (as far as I know). We’re not asking you to give up all of your other Icelandic/Nordic/Japanese traditions. That would be selfish of us… and we are not completely untraditional either. Conventional people here are against whaling too. I am somewhat conventional, because I still use a film camera and I don’t like facebook.
So we see it as a form of outdated national pride. You are basically caring more about your national pride than animal welfare. And that is just an outmoded concept in the rest of the world… do you ever stop to think that we live on the same planet as eachother? We have not three oceans but one. We breathe the same air. Why not listen to your fellow Earth citizens? We keep telling you that it is important to us…have the pro-whalers ever thought about what if they/you were wrong? I don’t think you realise the damage it is doing to your tourist reputation. Especially to those that go on a whale-watching tour and then see a dead whale on the return trip!
There something for Iceland to think about…
Leslie Dean Brown
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