Wednesday, December 19, 2007

WAILING


Southern Surveyor here recently for work in the dry docks. It is a CSIRO ship that sails the southern seas on research.
It could turn attention to whaling in the southern seas where the defiance of international norms occurs where scientific whale 'research' is a pretext for illicit commercial use of whale products. Hunting is driving the whale species to extinction.
The government is now sending a customs ship to monitor the whaling fleet. Diplomacy will be employed.
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has also gone to the whale killing zone and the Sea Shepherd organization has a ship Steve Irwin which will take more direct action in that enormous zone and who criticise the govenment's weak attempts to merely photograph and talk about the slaughter.
Whaling has a long history world-wide, whether it is the northwest coast of America or the South seas or elsewhere. Moby Dick is one classic tale.
Whaling was done in Western Australia for years until 1963. And when busy Byron Bay was just a glimmer in the developer's eye, a whaling station worked there from 1954 to 1962 and along with other stations at Norfolk Island, the Brisbane area and Eden, ended up with the species near extinction. Now, Whale watching is a popular venture.
Fundamentally, one aim is to prevent a devastating impact on the ecosystem. For example, when Killer whales had no Great whales to prey on, they turned to the seal, sea lion and sea otter and created a domino effect on the sea life. Overall the aim is to enfore the international regulations surrounding these issues and to end whaling altogether.

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