Dolphin and Orca Whale Hunt

Introduction

Dolphins and orca whales are being captured for entertainment and their meat. They are transported all over the world, primarily Sea World and Dubai to meet the entertainment requirements. Others are sent to Japan and are slaughtered for their meat. Hunters trap the dolphins and orcas separating them from their young, and then capture them. Orcas which are captured for entertainment do not live a very long life as they live for averagely 25 years. This is shorter compared to 50 and 60 years for male and female whales who are left in the natural habitats for life. The work of hunters always subjects both the dolphins and the orca whales to a painful experience and sometimes death. They can get depressed and even commit suicide, and all the noise caused by the audience and the small tanks can cause them to go crazy, which can result in harming the trainers. Orcas and dolphins do not belong to such small tanks, as it is hazardous to their health, and they belong to their homes, in the ocean.

The study aims to promote the protection of dolphins and orcas from the barbaric hunting methods used by hunters in whaling as well as biological and social consequences. The Taiji city was chosen because it acts as a major center for the small cetacean industry in Japan, which has been widely implicated. Another area of concern will be the United Sates through SeaWorld. Having exposed the major whaling concerns in the areas of study, the proposal will also seek to find out ways in which IWC can be made more efficient and effective. One of the ways is through incorporating small cetaceans like dolphins. Lastly, it will seek to find other alternative approaches like promotion of whale watching which can encourage the promotion of marine environment while also forming a source of revenue for the involved communities.

Background

This section will give detailed information of the findings as reported in three different articles. The first article is by James Hatley who works Salisbury University in its Department of Philosophy at the Fulton School of Arts. The second article was published by Peter Kareiva, Casey O’conor, and Christopher Yuan of the University of California. The third article was published by Yui Nishi from the University of California, its Hastings College of Law. All the three articles have related to the topic.

With a devastating reduction in the world population of whales, whaling has attracted controversy all over the globe. Those who are concerned with conservation together with the anima right activists have described whaling as a barbaric practice and have attempted to intervene in a number of ways. Hatley notes, “The cove, a recent documentary on the harvesting and slaughter of dolphins in Taiji Japan, envisions this practice as a mode of blasphemy” (Hatley, 2011). The concern has not been limited to larger cetaceans. It is for a reason that smaller ones like dolphins have also been the targets of those who would want them for meat and entertainment. Nations have come together to come up with various regulations. The concern started emerging way in 1946 when the International Whaling Conference was held for the first time in Washington DC. The conference saw the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling being signed. The regulation is what led to the International Whaling Commission’s establishment. The commission was charged with the regulation of cetaceans’ harvesting. The regulation was later, in 1986, backed by a moratorium which was later imposed on commercial whaling. This resulted into a great improvement on the prospects of whales together with other large cetacean species leading into the rising of their stock for some time.

However, Kareiva, Yuan-Farrell and O’Connor note that the danger is far from being over. Also, the trio note, “while direct mortality due to commercial harvest was obviously the cause of the original decline in whales throughout the world, factors other than harvest may now operate to slow or halt recovery” (Kareiva, Yuan-Farrell & O’Connor, 2006). The most implicated countries are Japan, Taiwan, Solomon Islands, and Peru. Though with little success, Japan has been advised in many occasions to have its dolphin hunting practices halted.

The problem has been the fact that the international Whaling Commission’s ban on commercial whaling has failed to protect small cetaceans like dolphins. Nishi notes, “perhaps more surprising is the fact that small cetaceans do not fall under the protection of the International Whaling Commission” (Nishi, 2010). The hunting of dolphins has continued to pose great risks challenge to human and environmental health in such countries as Japan. This has continued to happen irrespective of the fact that there are a number of agreements under conventions and charters that contain various principles necessary for the regulation of Whaling. Good examples are the United Nations World Charter for Nature and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Discussion

This section explains how this research will seek to advance the already published work. It will give detailed research questions as well as the implication of the research findings. Equally, the section will give the researcher’s proposed methodology for the research as well as giving insights about the preliminary research conducted on the topic.

The study will be based on the city in Japan (Taiji) and in the United States where employees working with SeaWorld will be interviewed. Most of the fishermen on Honshu Island have dolphin as their target, which they fish using extremely cruel means. As a way of driving dolphins to move towards the shore, hunters bang large pipes made of metal underneath the water to create some kind of sound wall. This causes the dolphins much panic and enables hunters to close on them. They are then herded into a secret cover and killed brutally using such crude weapons as knives, fishing hooks and spears. Moreover, the dolphins have to suffer pain for a long period of time since the process of killing them is not a quick one.

Related Free Research Essays