The Pros And Cons Of Whaling

In the modern world, many beautiful creatures are on the brink of becoming extinct. The low populations of animals such as whales, elephants, and tigers distinguish them as endangered, or nearly extinct, – and it’s mainly the fault of humans. Humans hunt these animals in order to use their bones, ivory, pelts, and several other items. Unfortunately, this hunting has progressed to excessive and, consequently, it’s depleting the animal populations. In the past, humans have taken numerous measures to try to preserve them. Some of these attempts have improved the situation and slowed the extinction rate, while some of these attempts have failed to protect the animals. Exploring how previous attempts to protect endangered animals developed can guide
Because of the risk to the animals, the IWC imposed a moratorium on hunting whales. In other words, they placed a temporary ban on whaling, which is still in place today. The IWC imposed the moratorium in 1982, going into effect during the 1985/1986 whaling season. This resulted in a dramatic decrease in whaling, according to a diagram of whale killings. The International Whaling Commission (IWC), an international body set up by the terms of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), estimates that the blue whale populations in the southern hemisphere have decreased from 200,000 to somewhere in the low thousands due to whaling. The population is so low that the IWC labeled them as endangered. However, since the IWC enacted the moratorium, the blue whale population has shown “an increasing trend of 8% per year in recent years.” This means that the moratorium has aided in the population growth of some of the species the IWC intended it to
Many countries, mainly in Asia, have killed tigers for their bones which traditional Asian medicine believes to have anti-inflammatory purposes. To a lesser extent, people kill tigers for their exotic and expensive furs, claws, and teeth. Every country has banned the use and manufacture of tiger bone; however, in many Asian countries, including China, Malaysia, and Viet Nam, illegal production continues to degrade the tiger population. In 2000, CITES formed the Tiger Enforcement Task Force, which works to control commercial poaching of all tiger species. This task force has been generally effective, causing illegal trade to decrease in several countries (Nowell, 2007). Unfortunately, many countries who have banned tiger poaching are not implementing the law. According to TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring network and a joint program of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a lack of law enforcement threatens several species of tiger (Nowell, 2007). TRAFFIC stresses that “law enforcement is necessary to prevent illegal trade” (Nowell, 2007). Even so, every species of tiger, except the Siberian tigers, have a declining population. All of the efforts made to preserve the animals have yet to reverse the effects of