Word: bowhead
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...mammals, Cetacea, for centuries. Archeologists believe Alaskan Eskimos have been whaling for over 2000 years. But some groups have been working to even the odds for the whales. In recent years controversy has arisen over whether the Eskimos should be allowed to continue killing the bowhead whale...
Last year the 17-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC) decided to ban bowhead hunting effective this year. A decade ago 10,000 of these sea-giants roamed the waters of the world; the IWC estimates that today there are only about 1000 remaining. But last Wednesday the IWC compromised its position just before the ban was to take effect. At the request of the U.S. government the IWC voted to allow the Eskimos a quota of 12 whales. Eskimo leaders promptly responded that they would "be forced to break a quota that small," according to The New York Times...
...ESKIMOS were allowed to whale without restrictions, the bowhead might well be extinct within a decade or two. Time-whitened bones and Eskimo legends would be the lonely legacy of the 60-foot-long, 20-ton leviathan. And both the whale and the Eskimo would lose in the long run. On the other hand, a complete ban on bowhead whaling would hasten the erosion of a once vital way of life...
...advantages of neither. By tossing the Eskimos a few crumbs (whales), the IWC insults their dignity and fails to halt the decline of their culture. And given the likelihood that the Eskimos will kill more than 12 whales anyway, the compromise will contribute to the extinction of the bowhead. Though the drawbacks of a total ban on bowhead whaling should not be glossed over, it is the best solution...
Worse, perhaps, the bowhead had been hunted to death-that leviathan of the Quakers' psalmbook that God put in "this great and wide sea ... to play therein...