Whale Wars

• 1. International treaties have banned the hunting of whales for food because of declining whale populations world-wide. However, every year Japanese fishing craft hunt and kill thousands of whales near Antarctica in violation of international treaties. They are able to do this because the law allows hunting some whales for scientific research. The vessels call themselves “research vessels”, but others say they illegally hunt and sell whales for food.
  
  Some environmentalists, enraged by the Japanese government’s hunting, decided to take matters into their own hands. They have bought boats and equipped them to scare whales away from hunters and forcefully challenge hunting boats. This results in frequent fighting and violent clashes between the two sides. Some people call these environmental activists terrorists. Some environmentalists call them heroes. The Japanese government calls them pirates. Both sides say that the law is on their side. How far is “too far” in defense of the environment and preventing the extinction of a species?
  What do you think? Respond to this question is at least two well developed paragraphs.

• Answer:
  
• According to Wiki, the debates over whaling have focused on issues of sustainability and conservation as well as ownership and national sovereignty. Since the International Whaling Commision (IWC) 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, the value of lethal sampling of whales for scientific research in order to establish catch quotas has also been debated. Someone see the value of whaling to fisheries as a method of controlling whales' perceived negative impact on fish stocks is another point of debate.
  
• I think the whaling is needed to be banned. Firstly, several whales’ species were severely endangered. Although IWC use the quota to limit the number of whale every country catch per year, many countries had been systematically underreporting the number of whales it took. Therefore, the declining of whales’ species may be serious than we know. Moreover, many goods from whale have better alternatives. It is unnecessary for the human being to kill whale. Thirdly, the distribution of quota is not totally fair for every country. Most of countries don’t satisfy their respective quota, so they may catch more whales to compensate the gap between the quota and real need. So IWC’s quota system cannot to save whale. Only complete stop of whaling can solve all above questions.