Canada Ignores Rescue Option, Kills 500 Endangered Narwhals
The Canadian government opted last week to allow the killing 500 narwhals trapped beneath ice rather than calling in icebreakers to free the animals, claiming the process would have been too stressful for the whales.
Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and star of Animal Planet’s Whale Wars, wrote a lengthy condemnation of the Canadian government’s decision. He noted that the government provides millions to fund ice-breaking for the annual baby seal hunt, but rejected the idea when proposed in order to save the whales.
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Canada allowed Inuit hunters to shoot the whales as they swam one-by-one to the one hole in the ice where they could come up for air. If minimizing stress was the goal, they miserably failed.
Watson believes the decision was made purely for economic reasons: breaking ice costs money, while killing narwhals makes money.
“Where Canada could have delivered the gift of life, they have instead unleashed a torrent of violence that has spewed the hottest of blood into the frigid seas of the high north,” wrote Watson, who is a Canadian citizen.
“Narwhal tusks sell for thousands of dollars and this bonanza was 4 times [the Inuits’] allowed ‘legal’ kill. This was an opportunity to put hundreds of valuable ‘unicorn horns’ on the market and to bring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the economy of the far North,” he continued. “Every Canadian should hang their head in shame at this atrocious environmental crime.”
Correction: Narwhals are in fact merely a threatened species, not endangered. However, there appear to be around 45,000 still in existence, meaning this killing spree wiped out a large chunk of the population. Narwhals also happen to be considered the animal most threatened by climate change, even more so than polar bears. It is also worth noting that the number of narwhals killed in this incident is actually now approaching 600.
Photo Credit: Glenn Williams on WikiMedia Commons under Creative Commons license.
fuck, i’m embarrassed to be canadian when these kind of atrocities occur in the name of capitalism.
Sickening. I understand the Inuit have traditional hunting rights but this is ridiculous.
Excuse me but how does a whale become “trapped under ice”… For one, there is much less coverage of the ocean by ice now then there ever was before due to the process of global warming. Further, whales can SWIM and leave the area covered by ice. This is part of a natural process if they are truly trapped. Survival of the fittest… come on!
To save the whales we had to destroy them. Wow, you Canadians are catching on. That’s sort of like how we in the US protect our citizens from the bad effect of drugs by locking them up forever and seizing all their property.
You damn canadians..Yet you have the ordasity to call Americans senseless and heartless. You freeloading bastards
Sucks to be a whale.
Think of all the hungry Inuits we just saved!
I am not, you know why? It was a sensible decision. This is a website with an environmentalist bias, I understand that but before you “hang their head in shame” why don’t you actually do some research and fact checking? Have you seen how the animals that you eat are treated when they are alive? Ashamed my fat ass. This is life get on with it.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/11/24/pond-narhwal.html
Good day to you sirs.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/11/24/pond-narhwal.html
Try an UNBIASED view for once in your damn lifetime. You guys give everybody else out there a bad rap.
These Narwhals were going to die anyway, this article is just sensationalistic crap. Suddenly activists don’t give a shit about the Inuit anymore, the Inuit are just the MAN now, they are part of the system and should be with treat the same disdain as anyone else. These Narwhal put themselves in that situation, they could have used Ice Breakers to save them, but then again a private group of individuals could have flipped the bill. Yes governments have to balance their expenditures with income from taxation, that’s what we vote for, that’s Democracy. What would Sea Shepherd want? A totalitarian society in which a they’re in charge robs people of their money and treats humans like animals, and animals like humans?
I feel for the Narwhals, but seriously nature dealt them a crap hand. The government chose not to spend tax payers money on saving them, ultimately balancing accounts is what they are responsible for, perhaps Sea Shepherd should buy themselves an ice breaker, if they can’t afford it than people who are chastising the Canadian government should put their money where their mouth is and donate to Sea Shepherd.