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.
Except Narwhals arn’t endangered, they’re Near Threatened and in this situation prob would have died anyway, a much slower and much more horrible death by drowning beneath the ice.
At least the price of narwhal horns will go down.
I don’t know about the rest of Canada, but this story has barely recieved ANY coverage around these here parts…I am so glad for the internet. How horrible
Damn. I would have been more than happy to put a few dollars of my taxes towards freeing these animals than to have the slaughtered to put some cash in the pocket of a few Canadians.
F’ing senseless and ignorant and just plain disgusting. What a load of garbage.
Hey LOLatcanada,
if you’re going to be insulting, learn how to spell. It’s “audacity”.
Freeloading? Where do you think the vast majority of our exports go? Yep the US. Get off your high horse. Half the talent in the states is imported from Canada.
What the hell is wrong with this world, I feel sick and can’t even read the whole story !!!
Where’s your global warming now hippies!
Numbers are wrong, its over 600 now.
You people don’t get it. These whales were trapped under ice so thick that the only way to break it up was to use an icebreaker. The whales run away any time a normal ship comes within a few miles. If an icebreaker approached, the noise would have forced the whales to run away and get trapped under the ice, where they would have died. Paul Watson knows this, but he’d rather make responsible people look bad so he can continue taking money from suckers like you.