Posted by michellefrey on 10/17/2007 1:19 pm

Not many people can say that they’ve been dripped on by a whale’s oil—but I can. I worked in New Bedford, Massachusetts for a couple of years and frequently visited their whaling museum. They had a gigantic 66-foot blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling. Even though it has been dead since 1998, it’s skeleton is somehow still exuding oils that drip from his nose (I think) and onto people walking around below. Pretty crazy, huh!

Walking around the museum, it was amazing and depressing to learn about the history of whaling and how it turned communities like New Bedford into major cities with economic riches. Once humans discovered that they could kill whales and then actually haul them back to land—whales were doomed.

It just wasn’t enough for us to take a couple whales to sustain our needs; we actually decimated entire populations. If we took too many of one species, then we just turned our attention to another species until they were decimated too. As a result of over-indulgence, communities and whales suffered. Cities like New Bedford took a major economic hit once whaling was no longer feasible or allowed – and many whale species were exploited to the point where their populations may never recover.

Whales today still face many threats—getting tangled up in fishing gear, being hit by boats and swimming around in polluted waters. You’d think that in the face of all these threats, they’d at least be safe from whaling. We learned our lesson, right? Well, not our friends in Japan. They seem to think they’re above the law and can continue to whale under the guise of “so-called” research.

Yeah, right! What kind of research is Japan conducting that justifies the need to kill 1,000 minke whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 50 endangered fin whales this year? I haven’t seen any new “scientific” journals posted about whale discoveries coming out of Japan. But, I have seen pictures of whale meat in Japanese markets and even in school cafeterias. Right, it’s research! Everyone believes that.

So, this season I’m following Greenpeace’s Great Whale Trail. It’s really sweet, actually. They are proving to the world that they can research whales withOUT killing them. You can follow too.

They have humanely tagged a bunch of humpback whales and will follow them by satellite as they journey to their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The best part about it is you can follow the journey too. They’ve made it all available online. From the looks of the map, the whales are heading towards New Zealand right now.

I understand that it’s not easy to change habits. We all fight against change—and are only compelled to move when we are made to, or don’t have the strength to fight against it any longer. I just hope we are able to convince Japan to stop whaling before it’s too late. The whales have had to change because of us. Let’s give them a break, show some compassion and make the oceans a safer place for them to live. I for one, have enough strength to share with them—so they can rest a little easier—why can’t the rest of the world?