Whales

LAST Sunday Inuit from Baffin Island, in the Canadian Arctic, discovered about 200 whales trapped in ice near Pond Inlet.  In the Arctic open water is starting to freeze-over with the onset of winter. 

Yesterday the Inuit started culling the whales, known as Narwhal, apparently on the advice of their elders and in the belief that otherwise the animals would die a slow death from starvation and/or suffocation.    

The Narwhal, Monodon monocerus, also known as ‘unicorns of the sea’, have a bizarre spiral tusk extending from their head which can be up to three metres long.   The species is not considered endangered and the normal hunting quota for the Baffin Island community is 130 Narwhal each year.

Greenpeace says it witnessed the main whaling ship the Nisshin Maru depart from a port near Hiroshima in Western Japan thought to be heading for the Southern Ocean. Read more here.

The Australian government is more virtuous and extreme on the issue of whaling than your average conservation group.  Read more here.

Tomorrow the residents of Barrow, Alaska, a town on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, will vote for a new mayor.    According to at least one report whoever wins will potentially impact the ability of the US to fast track its plans for energy independence through offshore oil drilling.

While both the current mayor, Edward Itta, and his rival and former Mayor, George Ahmaogak, are pro-development and have supported the oil industry, the incumbent Itta is against off-shore drilling.

Mayor Itta claims to be concerned that off-shore drilling will potentially scare away the bowhead whales which are still considered “culturally and nutritionally” important to his community of predominately Alaska Natives. 

There is also the issue of whether offshore drilling, as opposed to onshore drilling, will cut his municipality out of a share in the oil revenue.   Indeed could the whales be a convenient excuse for keeping oil exploration and revenue in the municipality?

In nearby Canada, hunting of bowhead whales is also still considered culturally important.  

In August, The Bowhead Whale Music Festival in Nunavik coincided with the signing of an authorization from Canada’s federal department of fisheries and oceans to kill a single whale.