*The direct action conservation movement Sea Shepherd revealed that on July 7, 2018, Iceland’s only fin whaling company, Hvalur hf, tortured and murdered an endangered blue whale.
For almost 50 years blues have been protected. During the 20th century, 360,000 of these glorious beauties were obliterated, including 29,000 in one year alone. Their populations have not rebounded.
Today, those that remain are filled with man-made poisons. The song of the largest animal to have ever lived on Earth is mostly drowned-out from humongous propellers of 100,000 ocean vessels daily, and incessant deafening air gun surveys for more climate-wrecking subsidized fossil fuels. A deaf whale is a dead whale. One of Iceland’s wealthiest men, Kristjan Loftsson, CEO of Hvalur hf, denied the slaying, “We have never caught a blue whale in our waters since they were protected.”
Sea Shepherd founder, Captain Paul Watson, on the other hand, aptly stated: “I know a blue whale when I see one and this whale slaughtered by [Hvalur’s CEO] Kristjan Loftsson is a blue whale.”
My colleague from the University of Hawaii, professor Adam Pack, noted “[Have a look at] the way the dorsal fin is hooked, the pointed pectoral fins and the size of the animal.”
In addition, this masterpiece lacked a white lip, a trait of fin whales, and the characteristic mottling on the whale’s flank, analogous to its blue fingerprints.
Massacring blue whales in the 21st century is criminal. Its lunacy is symptomatic of the craze of torturing whales by psychopathic planet-killers.
So why is one of the most affluent Icelander’s diabolically exterminating whales? On April 19, 2018, 75-year-old Loftsson sold 34% of his shares in the HB Grandi commercial fishing empire for $217.5 million, in part to underwrite his failing enterprise of bloodlusting for whales.
This year, Hvalur hf will brutally persecute 191 of Earth’s second largest filter feeders, fins. Like a 800 pound bully taking cotton candy from a child at a summer fair, Hvalur hf knows where the endangered fins feed, high tech radar and sonar easily spot these 85 feet long, 126-ton giants.
Penthrite-tipped grenade harpoons fired from a cannon, rip into the sentient intelligent whales and explode. Upon impact spring-loaded claws are released by the harpoon and embedded into the surrounding flesh when the line strains.
As the whale is mercilessly hauled out of the water its experiencing excruciating pain, which can last for as long as 50 minutes as it’s butchered alive.
Most Icelanders do not eat whales, rather, they depend upon living whales for their income. Many visitors support Iceland’s burgeoning annual whale-watching tours, the backbone of the $1.2 billion tourism industry.
So why is there such hatred by a few entitled, power-crazed Icelander’s to assassinate the whales, who intend them no harm?
Clearly, some humans suffer from a perversion, a sickness satiated only by taking the life of defenseless animals. The larger and more endangered the creatures, the greater the greed to destroy them.
The fact that these marine masterpieces play such a pivotal ecological role as farmers of the sea helping us survive, warrants immediate global enforcement of protecting all of the living whales, dolphins and porpoises (cetaceans).
300 zettajoules of fossil fuel heat, half of which has occurred since 1997, has leveled the basis of the marine food web, its phytoplankton.40 percent of the phytoplankton is gone because ocean heat has precluded deep cold currents from rising and carrying iron and nitrogen, its fertilizer.
Missing phytoplankton and blue green bacteria has resulted in plummeting atmospheric oxygen. Everyone I know now suffers from sleep problems. Falling atmospheric oxygen is the main culprit.
Flocculent fecal plumes from all cetaceans are rich in iron and nitrogen. They are attempting to regrow the missing phytoplankton and bacteria, and replenish the atmospheric oxygen that climate-wrecking fossil fuels are robbing.
By the way, phytoplankton and blue green bacteria give us almost two out of every three breaths of oxygen.
Hvalur hf sells its looted whale meat to Japan. Japan forces it upon the national school lunch program because there is no demand by adults to eat it.
The meat is loaded with mercury, cadmium, PCBs and other hideous man-made poisons. Why is the Japanese government knowingly poisoning its children?
Mercury impairs the central nervous system, lessens vision, reduces hearing, increases speech impediments, and promotes mental derangement and death.
Cadmium causes lung cancer, heart disease and anemia, it weakens bones, shuts down the autoimmune system and causes kidney and liver failure.
The 209 different chemicals within PCBs are known to lower IQ, erase short-term memory, wipe out the autoimmune system, destroy estrogen and testosterone, and, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a probable human carcinogen.
Whale meat is also fed to dogs and cats. Family pets suffer the same illnesses as children fed mercury, cadmium and PCBs.
Hvalur hf’s illegal whaling is bloody wrong. “U.S. law says they should be punished for what they are doing,” said Captain Watson.
The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act of 2006 specifically states that foreign nations should be punished for raping endangered species and engaging in illegal fishing.
Both fin and blue whales are considered endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Iceland, Japan, Norway and the Danish Faroe Islanders are not only ruthlessly annihilating the whales, they are hastening the demise of our ailing planet.
There’s a lot that each of us can do to fight back on behalf of the whales and our only home, Earth.
Refuse to purchase any products or services from Iceland, Japan, Norway and Denmark until they cease all commercial whaling. Refuse to support their tourism. Refuse to attend the 2020 Summer Tokyo Olympics.
Support Sea Shepherd because they protect our friends, the whales!
#Resist
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Dr Reese Halter is an award-winning broadcaster, distinguished conservation biologist and author.
Dr Reese Halter’s latest book is
Love! Nature
Tweet @RelentlessReese
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