Word: bowhead
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...idea comes from Australia, until last year a vigorous whaling country. It wants an indefinite ban on all whaling. The Carter Administration, backed only last week by Congress, has submitted a similar suggestion, with one loophole: Eskimos in Alaska would be allowed to maintain subsistence hunting of the endangered bowhead whale under strict quotas (last year's ceiling: 18 kills). If the conference fails to act on the U.S. proposal or a similar one, Congress may toss out a legislative harpoon of its own: a bill sponsored by Senators Warren Magnuson of Washington and Bob Packwood of Oregon would...
...whaling ships of the U.S.S.R. are rusted and worn and that Japan's are only slightly better-a clear sign that the world's most rapacious whalers are hesitant to invest more money in a losing business where catches are ever smaller. Some species like the bowhead and right whales may now number no more than 3,000 and perhaps are headed irreversibly toward extinction. Thus as the meeting convenes in London, the question may really be: Of whalers or whales, which will die out first...
...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...
...complexity of the Cetacean's brain, though not yet undeniably linked to an ability to reason and feel, raises tantalizing questions. Can whales live? Do they have an oral history? Are they happier than the acquisitive human being? Will we ever be able to communicate verbally with the bowhead? Have they ever read Camus...