Whaling

             The Minke whale or "cockroaches of the sea"-(1) had a pre-exploitation population of around 1,650,000 in the Southern Hemisphere and now their population is probably 50,000 to 100,000 worldwide. The Blue whale had roughly around 150,000 before commercial whaling but now most likely less then 20,000. Their current population means that the groups of whales over the world are very separated from each other and this in turn then means that the whales gene pool has also been greatly reduced causing a lack of bio-diversity and presenting another population crisis for the whales. .
             These are just a few of many species of whales that have been largely effected by commercial whaling and if it does not cease very soon then we will lose some species of whale for sure. .
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             However there are also some points as to why the whaling industry is not such a bad thing to have in today's world. The consumption of whale is part of many cultures and who gives us the right to take bits of their culture away just because it is not our own?.
             Whaling gives lots of people jobs that would other wise be unemployed and brings a source of income into many peoples homes. Japanese also suggest that they are doing humans a favour by killing whales because they eat too much fish which would otherwise be available for human consumption. .
             Humans are not yet aware of a humane way to kill a whale because of their enormous size. However due to their size less whales need to be killed overall because when one whale is killed it can be used as a lot of resources such as, oil, blubber, food and scientific research. .
             There is not really any need to worry about whales going extinct just yet but while we have them on our planet we should make good use of them.
             The level of impact on individuals should pose a huge moral problem to many individuals. Sadly because of the level of apathy of many individuals the extinction of species of whales would not have an affect of their lives at all, but then again it could have a huge impact on some people and make them more aware of what is really going on.