The issue of hunting large marine animals such as dolphins and whales for any purpose continues to be a pressing issue in the world of marine science today. Since these practices have become more exposed, an activist group against these hunts has been taking a stand and growing rapidly. Though there was a ban put on commercial whaling in 1986, loopholes have been found and taken advantage of ever since.
Australia has a fairly large activist group that stands against the hunting these animals and this group decided to bring the issue to light. Australia challenged Japan in saying that Japan is a country that is still practicing commercial whaling in the Antarctic and just disguising it under the term “scientific whaling.” Just the end of last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in favor of Australia, stating that the Japanese “failed to prove” that their whaling was being done for scientific purposes and therefore their whale hunt in the Antarctic must cease completely.
The Environmental Investigation Agency was excited to hear about this ruling and its exposure of Japan’s lies in terms of the topic, but also still has many concerns with the issue. Though this is a huge win for these activists, it is only a small step to ending the hunting of these animals. The ruling in the particular case only ended with a ban on the hunting going on in the Antarctic, forcing Japan to cancel the next Antarctic whaling hunt for the first time in more than 25 years. This is a great feat but, unfortunately, the Japanese hunt is still permitted to continue in the northern hemisphere, specifically the northern Pacific.
To this point, the poor management of the original ban on commercial whaling throughout the 20th century has already had a detrimental effect on the world’s whale population, sending species such as the blue whale, fin whale and humpback to the brink of extinction. Recently, the activist group against whaling is growing worldwide and this ruling definitely marks a milestone towards a world without whaling. If steps like this continue to be made and the importance of this issue continues to become more noticed, it hopefully won’t be too long before a world without the inhumanity of commercial whaling exists.