Word: whaled
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...words cut to the heart of a dispute that has been going on for decades. Are whales just another animal, to be protected when threatened with extinction but otherwise exploited? Or are they somehow different, a race of intelligent, sensitive mammals that deserves special treatment? Norway's action has raised these questions anew; so has the release of Free Willy, the sentimental movie about a boy who rescues a killer whale from a rundown aquatic theme park. (O.K., a killer whale is technically more of a giant dolphin than a whale, but the distinction is mostly academic.) A phone number...
Unlike many ecological debates, the controversy over whether to save the whales -- or even what that means -- does not divide into neat ideological camps. Many whalers agree that some species need saving; many environmentalists -- including Brundtland, considered one of the world's most conservation-conscious leaders -- think that some carefully regulated whaling is acceptable. Argues Heidi Sorensen, head of the Norwegian environmental organization Nature and Youth: "We love the minke whale -- in the same way that we love the reindeer and the elk. These are animals that are not threatened with extinction and that we hunt...
Unlike the snail darter, which only a militant ecologist could love, whales are inherently irresistible. People crowd by the millions into aquariums and theme parks to watch belugas and killer whales go through their paces. Tens of thousands risk seasickness each year to join whale-watching cruises. Songs of the Humpback Whale, a record of cetacean squeals and groans first released in 1970, sold 100,000 copies that year and has remained a fixture in New Age record bins...
...object of adoration is another man's prey. Whaling began centuries ago, spurred by the human need for whale meat and oils. The development of efficient "factory ships" in the 1920s almost wiped out the leviathans, leading ultimately to formation of the IWC in 1946. The commission tried for more than three decades to protect selected species before it finally decided that a total ban on commercial whaling was necessary...
...general, the moratorium appears to be working. Most whale stocks are at least holding steady, and some have begun to recover. For example, populations of humpbacks off South Africa have grown substantially. A study by the National Marine Fisheries Service says there were an estimated 2,050 blue whales off California in 1991, up from several hundred in 1980. And California gray whales, which migrate 13,000 miles a year between Baja California and the Bering and Chukchi seas, have increased from several thousand to 25,000 since the 1940s; they were taken off the U.S. Endangered Species List late...