When I was standing on a whale watching boat in Iceland, it is exactly these
issues—whaling, whale intelligence, social behaviour, threats—that came to my
mind. After all, in Iceland whales are hunted for commercial purposes, which
means that primarily their meat is used as a commercial commodity. Whales are
hunted to make money. This translates into whale meat not only being found on the
shelves and in the freezers of supermarkets in Iceland, but also in restaurants and
supermarkets in Japan—the main international customer of Icelandic whale meat.
Whales are also hunted commercially in a different manner: the whale watching
industry is booming, making Iceland follow a trend that has seen a tremendous
growth of whale watching activities worldwide. Between 1998 and 2008 (the most
recent data that I have seen), for example, the number of whale watching tourists had
grown from 9 million to 13 million while its global revenue had doubled from US$
1 billion to US$ 2.1 billion. All in all, 119 countries offer whale watching as part of
their nature-based tourist industry. Apart from its economic value for a country’s
GDP, whale watching also offers socio-economic and educational benefits to the
communities involved. Thus, economic activity and nature conservation can benefit
each other.
Whale watching inevitably uses the awe-inspiring physique of whales—their
aesthetic charisma—to influence the emotions of tourists. In Iceland, it is particularly
minke and humpback whales that are being chased for photographs and life-long
impressions. This commercial whale hunt is, by definition, non-extractive (leaving
aside the extracted images and impressions) and thus non-lethal. However, this is by
no means to say that whale watching is environmentally harmless. One must bear in
mind that where there are tourists there is waste, noise and other impacts on the
environment. In the context of whale watching, disturbance and ship strikes also
belong to frequently occurring side-effects of this activity. In order to prevent
increased disturbance by whale watchers, the IWC has developed the
Whalewatching Handbook.
2 Whale watching is thus now fully integrated into the
discourse on whales and human interaction with them. Indeed, one might even go so
far as to say that whale watching is considered to be the future of human-cetacean
interaction. Needless to say, this has not always been the case.
While many push for a non-extractive use of whales and for vegetarian and vegan
diets, it is truly impossible to imagine Western society in which meat is fully
abandoned. While there is a need to significantly reduce animal suffering (and to
reduce one’s environmental and carbon footprints), this wishful thinking contrasts
with the harsh realities of life in industrial societies: they call for diverse and easy
diets, neatly packed in plastic, always available all year round on the shelves of a
supermarket. In practice this affects the way meat is being produced: in large-scale
farms and slaughterhouses in which millions of animals are being bred and killed.
The dimensions are truly staggering. Just take the poultry slaughterhouse in Wietze,
Germany, for instance—the area where I grew up. In this slaughterhouse, the
maximum killing capacity is 27,000 chickens per hour, amounting to 432,000
2 IWC (2019).
36
3 Marine Mammals and Humans
issues—whaling, whale intelligence, social behaviour, threats—that came to my
mind. After all, in Iceland whales are hunted for commercial purposes, which
means that primarily their meat is used as a commercial commodity. Whales are
hunted to make money. This translates into whale meat not only being found on the
shelves and in the freezers of supermarkets in Iceland, but also in restaurants and
supermarkets in Japan—the main international customer of Icelandic whale meat.
Whales are also hunted commercially in a different manner: the whale watching
industry is booming, making Iceland follow a trend that has seen a tremendous
growth of whale watching activities worldwide. Between 1998 and 2008 (the most
recent data that I have seen), for example, the number of whale watching tourists had
grown from 9 million to 13 million while its global revenue had doubled from US$
1 billion to US$ 2.1 billion. All in all, 119 countries offer whale watching as part of
their nature-based tourist industry. Apart from its economic value for a country’s
GDP, whale watching also offers socio-economic and educational benefits to the
communities involved. Thus, economic activity and nature conservation can benefit
each other.
Whale watching inevitably uses the awe-inspiring physique of whales—their
aesthetic charisma—to influence the emotions of tourists. In Iceland, it is particularly
minke and humpback whales that are being chased for photographs and life-long
impressions. This commercial whale hunt is, by definition, non-extractive (leaving
aside the extracted images and impressions) and thus non-lethal. However, this is by
no means to say that whale watching is environmentally harmless. One must bear in
mind that where there are tourists there is waste, noise and other impacts on the
environment. In the context of whale watching, disturbance and ship strikes also
belong to frequently occurring side-effects of this activity. In order to prevent
increased disturbance by whale watchers, the IWC has developed the
Whalewatching Handbook.
2 Whale watching is thus now fully integrated into the
discourse on whales and human interaction with them. Indeed, one might even go so
far as to say that whale watching is considered to be the future of human-cetacean
interaction. Needless to say, this has not always been the case.
While many push for a non-extractive use of whales and for vegetarian and vegan
diets, it is truly impossible to imagine Western society in which meat is fully
abandoned. While there is a need to significantly reduce animal suffering (and to
reduce one’s environmental and carbon footprints), this wishful thinking contrasts
with the harsh realities of life in industrial societies: they call for diverse and easy
diets, neatly packed in plastic, always available all year round on the shelves of a
supermarket. In practice this affects the way meat is being produced: in large-scale
farms and slaughterhouses in which millions of animals are being bred and killed.
The dimensions are truly staggering. Just take the poultry slaughterhouse in Wietze,
Germany, for instance—the area where I grew up. In this slaughterhouse, the
maximum killing capacity is 27,000 chickens per hour, amounting to 432,000
2 IWC (2019).
36
3 Marine Mammals and Humans