PG-13
Until Iceland, Norway & Japan stop whale hunting I won’t support either of these three countries because they slaughter whales.
Iceland
Granted that Iceland has one of the premiere bucket list dives – Known as Silfra or the dive between the continental shelfs. As the site says “Silfra is the only place in the world where you can dive or snorkel directly in a crack between two tectonic plates.” I have trained a number of students to travel to Iceland in order to participate in this remarkable dive, even my dive mentor has taken a shop trip to Silfra with a pretty good sized group. Other than the fact that it is cold, very cold and it is a long way to go for two dives I wouldn’t mind doing it myself, although I’m not much of a ‘bucket-list’ type diver. There are a lot of so-called bucket list dives that I have no interest in or the inconvenience (such as travel time) are too great for me to just check it off a list. One of my best dive buddies loves to go to South-East Asia and spend a week diving at a bunch of different sites. I will be happy to rip off provide exposure to all her wonderful pictures, but that is like a 20-hour trip and multiple transfers. As people that know me, I don’t have the patience for that kind of trip.
So why am I conflicted – it sounds like a great dive and from what I understand the customer service is outstanding. The crew that went up there last year had an opportunity to visit the country side and reported it was beautiful. The problem is they hunt whales. It would be bad enough that they just wanted to hunt them for local consumption or some sick religious experience, but they hunt them in the name of greed. According to Wiki “In 2009 Hvalur H/F caught 125 fin whales and planned to export up to 1,500 tonnes of whalemeat to Japan. The fin whale is globally listed as an endangered species”. What’s worse is these hypocrites call it ‘research’, but it is becoming known that any so-called research is useless (October 27, 2016) from theconversation.com “Iceland has never had sentimental ideas that whales should not be hunted.”
They might not, but I sure do. It might not be much, but they have lost any chance of the money I might have spent there.
And then we have
Norway
I visited Haakonsvern/Bergan Norway back in 96 or 97. We spent a week there and I have to say how much I loved the place. It was summer time if I remember correctly, I wouldn’t have thought it was nice when it was cold of course. The people were so friendly and honestly liked Americans. I really enjoyed touring the castle and Hanseatic League Museum, so it is with sad heart that this wonderful people and country end up on my will not visit because they to slaughter whales for greed.
From the wiki article on Norway “Since 2006, when the Norwegian whaling quota was increased by 30%, Norwegian whalers have been allowed to hunt a quota of 1,052 minke whales a year. The Norwegian government pays subsidies equal to about half the value of whales caught.” I don’t really give a shit if “…whaling is subject to strict and detailed regulations concerning all aspects of the whaling activities”
The fact is they are slaughtering whales and, depending on your viewpoint, torturing them.
The article talks about “(t)he introduction of the penthrite grenade prototype increased the instantaneous death rate (IDR) of minke whales from 17% with “cold harpoons” (harpoons without explosives) to 45% during a study in 1985-1986. In 2000 the improved Whalegrenade-99 became mandatory and combined with better training further increased the IDR to 80% in all three subsequent whaling seasons in 2000-2002 with no statistical significant difference between the three seasons.”
Think about that for a minute – so a whale has a harpoon driven into it’s body and at least 20% are not killed right away. You do know it is a mammal right? Think of the pain it must be in while it slowly dies. And yes I not only know where my food comes from but have worked in a slaughter house, so piss off. With a land based animal, unless you are a sicko, and you don’t kill cleanly I would hope you would finish it off quickly. But how do you do that with something that is 24 feet and 4-5 tons? And in the ocean.
Japan
Unfortunately I don’t know of any way separating out or a way to make my displeasure known to the Japanese as I probably will never take the time to dive there and I have no idea how to boycott products from Japan.
It may not be much but it is what I can do and if I figure out what else I can do I’ll try. Something is better then nothing.
