It's no secret that whales have been hunted by humans for centuries. But what began as a method of survival has quickly into a sport that is hell bent on causing the extinction of a very important creature in our ecosystem. Studies show that between 1900 and 1999, 2.9 million whales were killed by humans for commercial use. These studies were conducted "using current data from the International Whaling Commission, along with data from the USSR...[and] the researchers found that 276,442 whales were killed in the North Atlantic, 563,696 in the North Pacific and 2,053,956 in the Southern Hemisphere." These estimates only account for whales that were killed industrially and do not include the number of whales killed illegally, for sport, or even for the whales taken from nature and placed into facilities like Sea World for the entertainment of humans. There are certain species of whales whose populations are believed to be only 1% of what they were before humans began to hunt whales. There are only 500,000 whales left in the ocean today.
We are only in the 16th year of the 21st century. There are only 500,000 whales left. It is hard to believe that, even if we stop hunting whales entirely right now, the whales would ever be able to repopulate back to their original numbers given the damage we humans have inflicted on the ocean habitats. We, as humans, need to look at what we are doing and the damages that our actions cause to other creatures and to our amazing planet. If we do not stop hunting these magnificent creatures, then soon there will be none left and we will have, yet again, destroyed part of our world and the oceanic ecosystem.
Sara Idol
March 19, 3:06pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/18/3-million-whales-killed-humans_n_6890938.html?utm_hp_ref=green
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