I really wish I had more intriguing information to share with you all but our last couple days have mainly consisted of research and getting an idea of the type of environment we'll be in for the next couple weeks, so our posts will get a lot more interesting by next week ~ . We've been very productive though, yesterday we generated a packet of descriptions of all the whales we could possible come into contact with in Maine (ex: North Atlantic Right Whales, Pilot, Humpback, and Finback, etc.) We researched eight types in great detail and afterwards we quizzed ourselves and were able to visually identify whales from their heads/flukes/fins/bodies using pictures from google, so that was pretty gratifying. Hopefully we'll be able to do the same when we're out on the ocean.
Also, we researched and discussed the legality of whaling (killing whales) in international waters. It's a very complicated situation for several reasons. But background information, there's three types of whaling: commercial whaling, special permit whaling, and indigenous whaling. Indigenous whaling is aboriginal groups of people who hunt whales as tradition or for survival, so that's irrelevant to many of peoples concerns. What is really up in the air is the conflict of commercial and special permit whaling. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) set a moratorium in 1982, banning all commercial whaling, which essentially infuriated a lot of nations, mainly Japan, and many Scandinavian countries because whale products bring in millions of dollars in revenue. So that's where the special permit whaling comes in. Special permit whaling is the allowance of whaling for the sole purpose of "research, but they can only collect a certain amount of whales. This is an issue because the IWC can make these regulations, but they have no way of enforcing them because its physically impossible to monitor every inch of ocean in the world, leaving the Japanese and other nations to neglect the regulations and continue their commercial whaling. Since the government isn't involved in enforcing the laws, groups of people, such as Greenpeace and Sea Shepherds (documented in the Animal Planet reality television series Whale Wars) take it upon themselves to stop the illegal commercial whaling using a somewhat eco-terrorist approach.
Even though we probably won't encounter a whaling vessel during our experience, it's still good to be aware of what's going on in the world that's not presented in the media. Today's our last day at Hawken and we leave for Maine on Monday, yay!
Xoxo Gossip Girl
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Today Lindsay and I read about the International Whaling Commission. They assumed a moratorium on whaling but unfortunately not many countries follow this. Countries like Japan, Russia, Norway and Iceland decided to go directly against the IWC’s moratorium and created their own permits excusing them to do all the commercial whaling they’d like. Controlling international waters is actually really hard but there are some activists out there who are really dedicated to protecting the whales.
If you’re a fan of Animal’s Planet show Whale Wars then you would have heard about Paul Watson, a whale activist who will literally risk his life to save the whales. Paul was a member of Greenpeace until 1977 when he was asked to leave. Greenpeace is another whale activist organization but some saw Watson’s tactics as too aggressive. Dedicated to whales, Watson founded his own organization called Sea Shepherd. You can see much of what Sea Shepherd is about on Watson’s reality TV show Whale Wars.
Watson has racked up a few red cards from Interpol by doing some questionable things on the sea. He is currently not allowed to go out on water and instead is writing books about his experiences and whales. He also tours around and speaks at many different colleges across the US.
On a separate note, Lindsay and I are leaving for Maine on Monday. We are really excited and will be bringing a GoPro and taking lots of pictures and we will put those up as well.
~Bre
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