Bears and Whaling

(Credit: Art.com)

Conservation groups have taken the first steps toward filing a lawsuit to protect the polar bears up in the Arctic. Read more here at the San Diego Tribune.

Meanwhile, until further information is available, I would encourage you to sign the following petition with the Defenders of Wildlife in the interest in increasing awareness about the polar bears.

Please sign the petition here: Oil Companies can wait, polar bears can't!

On the whaling front, Australia has finally made good on its' word and it's ship, the Oceanic Viking, has left port as of yesterday in search of the Japanese whalers. It takes about a week to get to their destination and they will remain at sea for 20 days, videotaping and photographing evidence of whale culling to potentially use against Japan in an International Court of Justice.

A cocky Japanese official states the case will never succeed.

"Antarctica is not a territory of any country. Lawful activities in open seas can never be blocked," he said.

The Australian government continues to decline the requests from both Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd to share their coordinates on the location of the whalers.

Greenpeace welcomed the icebreaker's departure, but called on the government to give the coordinates of the fleet to its anti-whaling ship in Antarctic waters, the Esperanza.

Neither Greenpeace nor a more militant environmental group, Sea Shepherd, has yet been able to find the whalers amid the icebergs and rough seas of the Southern Ocean.

"We would like those coordinates as we are much closer than the Oceanic Viking," said Rob Nicoll, Greenpeace whales campaigner.

Japan says the cull is for scientific research but makes no secret of the fact that the whale meat ends up in Japanese schools, supermarkets and restaurants.

There's a very interesting debate going on at Mammalian Misunderstanding?

Read the comments after this brief article.

Which brings me to ask it here too. If whale culling was going on in Japanese territorial waters, would we have the right to complain? If the whale culling is going on in international waters, do we have the right to complain?

I say yes to both. Whales are among many species on this planet that are either threatened or endangered.

I do believe the argument that the whaling going on in international waters is absolutely an international issue and everyone has the right to take a stand on that. For Japan to argue they kill whales for national pride or hide behind the BS excuse of scientific research, is weak - very weak. They have to go through Australian waters to reach the Southern Ocean which doesn't even belong to them, it belongs to the world.

How about the Amazon Rain Forest? That belongs to South America but due to its vast size it has an effect on worldwide climate. Therefore, the deforestation of the rain forest is an international issue and justifiably, there are people who protest it and work in the interest of protecting it.

Regardless of where one stands on any issue, take a stand. Be passionate and be heard. Otherwise, in a few short decades, all we'll have left for our children and grandchildren is a barren wasteland of nothingness and dark, empty seas.

Mahalo,

Dolphin