Which country on Earth kills the most cetaceans?  

From time to time, criticism is directed at us (via our CCA social media accounts) that Canada is the country holding this most ignoble distinction.   The truth is that, if you look at countries which still permit some kind of legally sanctioned slaughter of cetaceans, the worst offender may well be Canada.  Sadly.  And this takes us into what I regard to be the single most difficult question we at CCA, as an organization, are ever likely to face.

First, some context to frame this discussion.

As incredible as it may seem, to this day humans are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins every year.  Most of  these deaths occur when we recklessly endanger them through our activities.  We’re talking about entanglement and drowning in fishing nets or discarded fishing gear, boat collisions, ingestion of our plastic waste, sonic blasting that is devastating to their ability to survive in their highly acoustic environment as we search for oil deposits or perform military exercises.  And so on.  A kind of homicidal neglect and indifference by our own species as to the consequences of our actions.

So that’s the main killer of whales and dolphins.  By far.

Then we get into deliberate killing.  Most of this is illegal and persists in areas of the globe lacking either the resources or political will for enforcement.  The killing happens for a variety of reasons.  Among these are removal of perceived competitors for fishing resources, selling the meat on local black markets or – incredibly – using whale and dolphin flesh to bait fish hooks.  The number slaughtered in this non-sanctioned hunting is far greater than in all commercial hunts combined.

Now in these categories mentioned so far, Canada is not among the worst offenders.  A few in the first category, so we have some work to do there, and none at all in the second.  But from here things get much more dicey.  If we focus exclusively on the deliberate, legal killing of cetaceans, Canada is either number one, or very close to it.  But for reasons that will become clear, this has largely gone under the radar.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC), the international body charged with whale conservation and the management of whaling, decided that there should be a pause in commercial whaling starting in 1986.  More than a century of virtually unrestricted hunting had reduced numbers to such low levels that it had become obvious that a number of species would soon be facing extinction.  Fortunately, what’s become known as the whaling moratorium went into effect at the time, and it essentially remains in force today.

Those few countries who chose to ignore the commercial ban have since drawn most of the world’s attention – almost all of it negative, and deservedly so.  Today, that’s principally Norway, Japan and the Faroe Islands.  Iceland has also been among the major whaling nations, but may have ended their commercial operations.  No hunts will be taking place this year, but a permanent decision has not yet been made.  Japan’s return to an openly commercial hunt was very recent, but it’s long been obvious that they’d never really ended theirs, having taken advantage of an IWC exception granted for ‘scientific permits’.  Luckily, no other nations have chosen to operate under that guise.

Canada’s role in the slaughter of cetaceans is via the second exception to the whaling moratorium granted by the IWC.  It allows governments to award “non-zero whaling quotas for aboriginal subsistence”.  To this day, it is under this provision that whales are hunted in Alaska, Greenland, Siberia and of course northern Canada.

In North America at the present time, this small-scale whaling is carried out by about one hundred communities in northern Canada and Alaska.  The annual take is between one-to-two-thousand whales each year, principally of three species: beluga (in greatest numbers), narwhal, and much smaller numbers of the more endangered bowhead whale.  There is also a more limited hunt among a few of the Native American communities in southern Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.  Whaling by non-indigenous peoples in North America ceased entirely in the 1970s when commercial markets for whale products essentially dried up, and the relative scarcity of preferred species made whaling economically-unviable.

In the indigenous communities that still practice it, however, whaling is not considered an economic activity in any real sense.  It does play an important role in that it makes a key contribution to food security for many northern peoples by providing quantities of meat and fat that would otherwise have to be transported in at great expense.  It’s also important to consider the manner in which customs associated with whaling contribute to the cultural vitality of these remote, marine-resource dependent communities.  

Though modern tools and methods have significantly lessened the risk that hunting large marine mammals will result in the loss of human life at sea or on the sea ice, it’s important to remember that the cultural beliefs around whaling evolved at a time when it was a far more dangerous occupation.   Many religious beliefs, rituals and practices evolved over time to insure the safety of those engaged in this high-risk activity, practiced for the benefit of the entire community.  Thus, whaling retains its cultural importance.  That on top of its practical importance in terms of supplying a commodity that would otherwise be much more expensive in remote areas.

It gets even more complicated than that, unfortunately, and we begin to see why putting an end to the slaughter of cetaceans in Canada will be problematic, at the very least.  In fairness to indigenous peoples, it has to be noted just how different these hunts are from the senseless, brutal massacres that take place on the beaches of the Faroe Islands – a place where food security is absolutely not in question.  In aboriginal subsistence hunts the whale is celebrated.  There is a reverence for the animal that will provide life to the people of the community.   This respect is reflected in ceremony, aesthetic practices and spiritual beliefs. 

Anyone who’s seen both can easily see the difference.  On the one hand, the breathtaking savagery coupled with the obvious enjoyment of the process – one can’t help but think of insecure men making a pathetic attempt to assert their masculinity.  The lack of even the slightest economic necessity makes it difficult to come up with any other explanation.  The Faroe hunts are essentially killing for sport.  That is most assuredly not what’s taking place in Canada’s north.

And there’s another thing that must be said, further complicating this issue.   When recognizing the position that many indigenous peoples find themselves in today, our acknowledgment of Canada’s colonial past is unavoidable.  Having been persistently and inevitably pushed onto ever more marginal lands, having had one’s options increasingly limited over a number of generations, for many peoples in the north, sovereignty is the real issue.  History matters, and relatively recent history at that.  For anyone, the Government of Canada or anyone else, to further dictate what is or is not an acceptable food source is more than a matter of defying political correctness.  It’s more about restoring dignity and fairness.

So we in Canada are indeed presented with a daunting problem.  It’s also one that can’t be ignored much longer because there is another issue of paramount importance at play, and that is the rights of the cetaceans themselves.  Having come as far as we have, and knowing what we now know but would have been impossible to know until recently, we eventually must come to accept that we simply don’t have a right to kill whales and dolphins.  The reasons why are all over this website and this blog, but it boils down to the essential nature of these beings.  

The Jane Goodall Bill that is currently working its way through parliament, and its foremost champion – Senator Murray Sinclair – are entirely hitting the mark with this legislation.  It paves the way for legal standing for certain key species (and in my opinion it names exactly the right ones).  I’ll further state that it’s abundantly clear that an animal like the beluga, with its supreme intelligence, should be among the first in line to benefit from the thrust of this bill.  One day it will be widely recognized that they have a right to their lives and their liberty.

We’ve written on this blog recently about the Lummi Nation, also traditionally known as the Lhaq’te’mish, the native people of the Salish Sea.  To the Lhaq’te’mish, the orcas that swim in those waters are themselves people.  The Lummi believe the orcas have societies and a culture similar to their own.  I believe this as well.  One day our cultural mainstream will recognize that the Lummi are right.  100%.

So what all this means is that when we’ve ended the terrible injustice being done to whales and dolphins, stopping commercial hunts will have turned out to be the low-hanging fruit.  Solving the problem presented by subsistence hunts will prove to be orders-of-magnitude more difficult.  But that doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t be done.  It just means it will be difficult.

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Phil, Canadian Cetacean Alliance