This story, although away from the issue of global warming, climate change and reducing co2, is evidence of mankind's selfish, brutal habitation of this planet. Frankly, it disgusts me.
Japan might kill world's only white whale
By Nick Squires in Sydney
Last Updated: 3:01pm GMT 12/11/2007
Australians fear that the world's only known white humpback whale could be slaughtered as Japan's whaling fleet prepares to embark on its annual hunt in the Southern Ocean.
Scientists make monkey cloning breakthrough
Tigers given emergency dental treatment
Burgers from cloned animals 'by 2010'
The unique male whale, named Migaloo - an Aboriginal word for "white fella" - has become a celebrity in Australia since being spotted for the first time in 1991.
Migaloo the white humpback swims with another whale (top) and diving after breaching
Each year Migaloo - along with thousands of other humpbacks - migrates from the icy seas of Antarctica to the warm shallows of the South Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef.
A few months later the whales, the females leading their newly-born calves, return to Antarctica.
The arrival of 45ft-long Migaloo - believed to be the only completely white humpback in the world - is keenly anticipated by whale watchers along Australia's east coast.
He has been hailed as modern day Moby Dick, even though the creature in Herman Melville's 1851 classic was a sperm whale.
Conservationists fear that Migaloo is so accustomed to whale watching and fishing boats, that he will be easy pickings for Japanese hunters.
With the southern hemisphere summer approaching, the Japanese whaling fleet is preparing to leave port within days. It refuses to say exactly when.
It has declared that for the first time it will kill 50 humpbacks, as well as 50 fin whales and hundreds of minke whales.
The Japanese argue that after decades of hunting fin and humpback whales have recovered to sufficient levels that they can now withstand being harpooned again.
Telegraph.co.uk
If the leaders of the free world sit back and do nothing to stop this unique whale being slaughtered by the Japanese, then we are not worthy of our place on mother Earth.
Write to the Japanese cabinet via this link and express your views - and point out the financial consequences, as that is all the Japanese seem to care about.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment.html
No comments:
Post a Comment