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.
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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.
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.
i’m not going to tell you what i think, duhhhh…..
You fucking asswipes,you think you can just go ‘kill them all!’ don’t you, you sll make me sick. Narwhals are an awesme animal. Yet you have the guts to say ‘eh, kill them all,’ It’s that kind af crap that is making the entire world go down the drain. It’s your fault that so many animals are endagered, I pay the organizations that help that, I recycle, I try to be pollution efficent. But the rest of us are turning into monsters and start throwing chairs. You should be ashamed of the human race.
okay please read this it is something that everybody should read,consider and comment on……im canadian but if you lived in baffin islands they kill narwhals every year its just like killing cow’s to get steak or beff this is how they live how they survive the narwhals would have died any ways i agree that we could have sent in boats to break the ice but the narwhals would have gotten so scared they could have gotten heart attakes its a die die situation it’s life….i know that narwhals are almost endangered but you cant always blame us its global warming too!and then to say were “mad for losing wars and stuff so we take it out on animals thats Canada for you” that is not something you should say because you americans have had just as many faults as us but this is the food chain stuff like this happens…….now that you have read this i would like to tell you that i live in Ontario and i am 12 the only reasone I used my mothers acount to do this is because 1)my mom said i could 2)because is the things you amaricans said about us isn’t all that nice when the people on Baffin islands are just trying to live you should try to look into it and i am not EMBARASSED at all to be Canadian so nobody should be!