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To: THE GOVERNMENT
Stop the Bloody Sea Life Slaughter in the Faroe Island, Japan, Iceland & around the world
I am writing to urge you to stop the bloody whaling traditions and general cruel killings of these endangered animals!
Why is this important?
In 2015, activist and actor Ross McCall visited the Faroe Islands and wrote about his experience at the Huffington Post. Like any good journalist, he thought it only right to see the whale hunt up close and personal. So he took the test, got his license to hunt, and reported what he saw. He is unapologetic about his disdain for the grind – and he’s brutally honest in his descriptions. One of the most stomach-turning?
McCall reports: “I’ve now seen the Grind. I’ve walked through the aftermath. The carnage. The carcasses that have been brutally sliced open at the guts. I’ve seen the fetuses. The numbers scraped into the skin. I’ve seen the locals let their children play on the bodies. Seen the knives left in the whales’ skulls. I’ve watched as they used a buzz saw to remove their heads. Watched their gall bladders being cut out. I think it’s fair to say that I do have a little knowledge of what happens there. I’ve met the men who plunge the MONUSTINGARI’S, (retractable spears), into the backs of the Pilot Whales. I’ve witnessed them do it. It’s chilling. It’s devastating.”
Animal welfare groups from around the world presented a report on whaling yesterday that aims to take the argument back to basics: the cruelty of the kill.
The report, likely to be seen as one of the most significant contributions to the whaling debate for many years, is a detailed scientific study of how much violence is needed to slaughter the world's largest animals in the open ocean.
Its premise is that much of the argument in the annual conferences of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) now tends to be about whale population statistics, and this has obscured the main issue - that the act of killing the great whales, usually by explosive harpoons, isunacceptably cruel.
The report,Troubled Waters, comprehensively reviews the animal welfare implications of modern whaling activities. It has been produced by 142 animal welfare organisations from 57 countries, including several from Britain, who have come together in a new coalition,Whalewatch. Its avowed purpose is to bring the issue of cruelty back to the fore at the next IWC meeting in Italy in July, and maintain the international moratorium on commercial whaling.
The moratorium has been in force since 1986, but is increasingly being challenged by the three main pro-whaling nations - Japan, Norway and Iceland. Since it was introduced, more than 20,000 whales have been killed by the whaling countries - by Japan and recently Iceland under the guise of "scientific" whaling, and by Norway as a simple commercial hunt. In this coming year they are likely to kill more than 1,400 animals between them, mostly minke whales.
But the new report does not concern itself with numbers. It sets out to demonstrate, in extensive technical detail, that the great whales are so big and powerful that the amount of force needed to dispatch even one of them is unacceptably inhumane.
Britain's best-known naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, stresses the point in his foreword to the report. "The following pages contain hard scientific dispassionate evidence that there is no humane way to kill a whale at sea," says the broadcaster.
"Dr Harry Lillie, who worked as a ship's physician on a whaling trip in the Antarctic half a century ago, wrote this: 'If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck in its stomach and being made to pull a butcher's truck through the streets of London while it pours blood into the gutter, we shall have an idea of the method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream, the industry would stop for nobody would be able to stand it.' The use of harpoons with explosive grenade heads is still the main technique used by whalers today."
Sir David suggests that any reader of the report should "decide for yourself whether the hunting of whales in this way should still be tolerated by a civilised society."
Peter Davies, director general of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, one of the leading groups in the coalition, said: "The cruelty behind whaling has become obscured in recent years by abstract arguments over population statistics. The fact is that, whether it is one whale or a thousand, whaling is simply wrong on cruelty grounds alone."
Tests to determine the moment of death of a whale are inadequate, the report says, and the question remains whether whales may in fact still be alive long after having been judged to be dead. The full extent of their suffering is yet to be scientifically evaluated. (https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/a-simple-reason-to-stop-whaling-its-cruel-63495.html)
These are just two articles of thousands dating back to 2004. The killings of whales, dolphins and in some cases even sharks, is getting worse each year. Many of these poor animals are becoming close to extinct let alone endangered and are facing life threating problems left right and centre, all at the hands of humans, from plastic polluting their waters to being hunted by the thousands each year. And even if it wasn't illegal the killings are just cruel, bloody and heartless. I urge govermants around the world to listen up and I urge people to just reserach. You will be astonished as well as disgusted by what you find. Don't let any more animals suffer at the hands of people. Don't let their blood be on our hands.
McCall reports: “I’ve now seen the Grind. I’ve walked through the aftermath. The carnage. The carcasses that have been brutally sliced open at the guts. I’ve seen the fetuses. The numbers scraped into the skin. I’ve seen the locals let their children play on the bodies. Seen the knives left in the whales’ skulls. I’ve watched as they used a buzz saw to remove their heads. Watched their gall bladders being cut out. I think it’s fair to say that I do have a little knowledge of what happens there. I’ve met the men who plunge the MONUSTINGARI’S, (retractable spears), into the backs of the Pilot Whales. I’ve witnessed them do it. It’s chilling. It’s devastating.”
Animal welfare groups from around the world presented a report on whaling yesterday that aims to take the argument back to basics: the cruelty of the kill.
The report, likely to be seen as one of the most significant contributions to the whaling debate for many years, is a detailed scientific study of how much violence is needed to slaughter the world's largest animals in the open ocean.
Its premise is that much of the argument in the annual conferences of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) now tends to be about whale population statistics, and this has obscured the main issue - that the act of killing the great whales, usually by explosive harpoons, isunacceptably cruel.
The report,Troubled Waters, comprehensively reviews the animal welfare implications of modern whaling activities. It has been produced by 142 animal welfare organisations from 57 countries, including several from Britain, who have come together in a new coalition,Whalewatch. Its avowed purpose is to bring the issue of cruelty back to the fore at the next IWC meeting in Italy in July, and maintain the international moratorium on commercial whaling.
The moratorium has been in force since 1986, but is increasingly being challenged by the three main pro-whaling nations - Japan, Norway and Iceland. Since it was introduced, more than 20,000 whales have been killed by the whaling countries - by Japan and recently Iceland under the guise of "scientific" whaling, and by Norway as a simple commercial hunt. In this coming year they are likely to kill more than 1,400 animals between them, mostly minke whales.
But the new report does not concern itself with numbers. It sets out to demonstrate, in extensive technical detail, that the great whales are so big and powerful that the amount of force needed to dispatch even one of them is unacceptably inhumane.
Britain's best-known naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, stresses the point in his foreword to the report. "The following pages contain hard scientific dispassionate evidence that there is no humane way to kill a whale at sea," says the broadcaster.
"Dr Harry Lillie, who worked as a ship's physician on a whaling trip in the Antarctic half a century ago, wrote this: 'If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck in its stomach and being made to pull a butcher's truck through the streets of London while it pours blood into the gutter, we shall have an idea of the method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream, the industry would stop for nobody would be able to stand it.' The use of harpoons with explosive grenade heads is still the main technique used by whalers today."
Sir David suggests that any reader of the report should "decide for yourself whether the hunting of whales in this way should still be tolerated by a civilised society."
Peter Davies, director general of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, one of the leading groups in the coalition, said: "The cruelty behind whaling has become obscured in recent years by abstract arguments over population statistics. The fact is that, whether it is one whale or a thousand, whaling is simply wrong on cruelty grounds alone."
Tests to determine the moment of death of a whale are inadequate, the report says, and the question remains whether whales may in fact still be alive long after having been judged to be dead. The full extent of their suffering is yet to be scientifically evaluated. (https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/a-simple-reason-to-stop-whaling-its-cruel-63495.html)
These are just two articles of thousands dating back to 2004. The killings of whales, dolphins and in some cases even sharks, is getting worse each year. Many of these poor animals are becoming close to extinct let alone endangered and are facing life threating problems left right and centre, all at the hands of humans, from plastic polluting their waters to being hunted by the thousands each year. And even if it wasn't illegal the killings are just cruel, bloody and heartless. I urge govermants around the world to listen up and I urge people to just reserach. You will be astonished as well as disgusted by what you find. Don't let any more animals suffer at the hands of people. Don't let their blood be on our hands.
