A story of stress and upheaval from the violent twentieth century recorded in stress hormones and tracked by scientists… This isn’t the tale of a war-torn human population, it’s the story of whales harassed and hunted by humans over a period of 150 years. Scientists have gathered earwax plugs from between 1870 and 2016 to study the stress hormones in whales. Stress hormones dramatically increased during times of intensive whaling and decreased when moratoriums were put on whaling in the 70s. However, now factors like pollution, climate change and noise pollution seem to have been causing a slow rise in stress for whales over the last 40 years. The oceans have become a boiling soup of pollution, human activity and higher temperatures, and whales, like many creatures are being turned into refugees of violent industrial human activity. Not only this but whales were shown to have survivor stress because of whaling, meaning that whales who were exposed to the indirect effects of whaling and its constant harassment experienced stress spanning vast distances. This research spells out another chapter in the saga of humans waking up all too slowly to the reality that we share our planet with other beings, who experience a rich range of emotions and can suffer terribly at our hands. Read more about this research here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ear-wax-tells-story-humans-and-whales-over-last-century-180970840/

Because of a legal loophole, Japanese whalers can still kill large numbers of whales in the Antarctic every year, and this year, many pregnant and young whales were amongst the dead. Japan justifies these expeditions for scientific research, but their reasons are shaky.

For a start, the International Whaling Committee banned commercial whaling in 1985, and most countries, if not all, complied. A 1946 law that says whaling can still take place for scientific reasons is used as a justification for Japan’s expeditions. The whales on these expeditions can be sold for meat, leading to accusations that the scientific explanation is a convenient excuse. The scientific research is apparently undertaken to discover such factors as sexual maturity, nutritional condition and prey consumption of the whales. However critics have said this can be done by taking a biopsy instead. As well as claiming whale-hunting is done for scientific research, Japan has also defended its ancient “culture” of whaling.

122 pregnant whales and 114 juvenile whales died in this massacre. 333 whales in total were killed on this expedition. How did they die? By harpooning, ie using harpoons loaded with a 30g penthrite grenade.

Rather than terrorizing their population and using a violent method of killing them, Japanese whalers could find a more humane way of studying them, but they choose not to. Cultural inertia towards animals needs a wake-up call. Around the world, people are realizing that we don’t have to accept a cultural narrative about dominating and harming animals. It’s time to put pressure on the defenders of “cultural” cruelty to animals.

More info on this story:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12061465
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44307396
https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/japan-whaling-kills-122-pregnant-whales-for-research/news-story/a1851aeec523563c79d593df7085e61b