Word: whaled
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Many marine biologists, though, think these complaints are exaggerated. Says Sadove: "There's no way you can produce an ideal environment for a 30-ft. killer whale, but you can provide an adequate one." And, observes Louis Garibaldi, director of the Aquarium for Wildlife Conservation in New York City, marine mammals don't necessarily prefer open spaces. "Our belugas often choose the smallest tank available," he says...
...early June, the four-ton, 30-ft.-long female minke whale was done with her winter sojourn in temperate waters. It was time to head back to the chilly Arctic for the summer. Traveling north, she and her fellow minkes would periodically dive down to gulp fish, then swim back to the surface to suck air through their blowhole -- for like all whales, minkes are air-breathing mammals. They followed an age-old migratory track, invisible to humans but as well marked as an interstate highway to the whales...
Unfortunately for this particular whale, the track led directly up the coast of Norway -- and on June 17, into the path of the Ann Brita. A few minutes and a well-placed harpoon later, the minke's destiny abruptly changed course. Instead of reaching the Arctic, she ended up on an auction block in the Norwegian port of Svolvaer, sold to the highest bidder for $2.50 a lb. This minke was the first of 160 hauled in by Norway this season for commercial sale. Each of these catches violated the worldwide ban on for-profit hunting established by the International...
...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...