The dirty business with the Whales

[Music] but those we plan to capture 850 minke whales in addition will capture 50 each of humpback and fin whales during this expedition as a feasibility study we plan to capture 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales [Music] waving is no different in my opinion commercial activities embracing chicken or or having pig farm or in human laughs it's just to say if you have an animal that makes you feel small and whales make everyone feel small and if that happens then to go up and kill it is just I think is is madness wael conservationists against whale hunters what is really behind the conflict for the first time both sides express themselves openly why people still want to do it they feel it's part of their culture you know it's part of what makes the nation the people living close to nature and wanting to live with nature they want to eat it [Music] here in this land we hunt for food if one of them is ready to be taken ladies our dimension [Music] as commercial whaling starts up again at scale it cannot be managed you will not learn from our past mistakes how will the fight for the whales continue who will win in the end [Music] Wales Giants worthy of protection or just a commodity whale hunters and conservationists are entrenched no other animal has been the cause of so many international treaties aroused so much passion and anger diplomats and activists from more than 80 countries meet every year to negotiate new catch quotas and that's despite the international ban on whaling in force since 1986 that was achieved we're not gonna change it but we are gonna kill whales during it which is what countries such as Japan Norway and Iceland want to increase their quotas and to hunt endangered species in the face of a tangle of paragraphs this simple question leaves a lot of room for interpretation Iceland the Norway used a contractual illegal exception to this hunting banned so they don't see themselves tied to this there is also an internationally recognised trading ban on whale products and the three countries have vetoed this ban i sling Norway and Japan are in a way the triangle that perceives whaling as a sort of future model I think that the proposal which is under discussion right now is happening right in this one if that proposal goes through what actually will happen is that will undo about 40 years of work and we will go right back to where we were in the late 40s early 50s of the last century in the last century it was mainly the Russians Americans and Germans who hunted the big whales to near extinction [Music] it was due to the whales that the lights were on at the start of the Industrial Revolution the reason whaling began is it was incredibly important commodity for industrial civilization it was the source of oil you know there was no petroleum oil was a big part of the Industrial Revolution it all came from from whales in the first few decades of the last century nearly 2 million large whales disappeared into the blubber tanks of the factory ships and they just killed them off and we didn't need to kill them off that is kill kill kill in general people never know when to stop which is a big thing covering whale conservation fish conservation everything we don't know when to stop people are very bad at regulating themselves when numbers of whales had been reduced below economic levels in one ocean they were found in another if one species became difficult to find the hunters went for another if one market for whale products collapse a new one emerged when hunting weapons reached their limits new more efficient ones were developed [Music] they an argument that is used by the Whalers is you know what we think whales are no different than a cow or a bigger a chicken they're probably talking about the mental capacity of these animals pathologists have discovered that inside the brain of humpback whales it's a particular kind of neuron called a spindle neuron which previously was only found in the higher primates those animals say these researchers who are capable of experiencing complex emotions gee whiz let's see does that mean that they're stupider than we are or that they are less capable of calculating things I don't think so but I do think there's nobody including most particularly me has any idea what whales are using their brains for the brain of a sperm whale weighs up to 8 kilograms the largest brain in the animal world they hunt squid at a depth of up to 3000 meters using a form of echolocation they produce 200 clicks per second with which they find their prey in the dark depths the highly intelligent orcas make sounds to communicate their sands can vary a lot each family has its own dialect the song of the humpback whale is world-famous it is considered the most complex form of non-human communication a single song can last 25 minutes a symphony all day long when this whale song was discovered it really was the deciding factor that got people really interested in whales and saving them until that point mostly the whaling industry was interested in whales conservationists declare whales to be special animals those who trade in them declare them an important food source a conflict that is hard to resolve as Sir Geoffrey Palmer from the New Zealand delegation explains only three nations can be described as commercial purposes a handful of others have quotas issued by the IWC for Aboriginal subsistence whaling I believe the fundamental purpose of the convention has been in dispute is this a treaty about the conservation of whales and preventing them being killed or is it a treaty about whaling and the commercial exploitation of whales and can it accommodate both views you have his anti-whaling countries like Australia New Zealand UK United States Germany EU the whole EU block they are against whaling 100% so they want only zero but we will never accept that zero Kota [Music] Iceland situated in the middle of the North Atlantic is dependent on the sea like no other country [Music] the catch from the high seas secured livelihoods and wealth this is still the case today [Music] Christiaan lofts on runs a family business his father founded the valuer company after world war ii between 1948 and 1985 12,000 whales died on these ships then the abrupt end iceland joined the International Whaling Commission the fleet was grounded commercial whaling forbidden a decision which was met with incomprehension by the whalers there was no reason to stop whaling here in Iceland not at all but all of these politics antis etc of the politicians here were too weak to challenge it so we have been hanging around for 20 years to get going again in a surprise move in 2009 the Icelandic fisheries ministry declared the hunting of the threatened fin whale open again fin whales are up to 24 metres long and weigh around 50 tonnes the fin whale is after the blue whale the largest animal on earth now lofts UNS fleet is beating the north atlantic again with the aim of hunting a hundred and fifty fin whales a year [Music] by taking 150 fin whales out of a stock or 20,000 which is the estimate of the population around here you can carry on forever in 2009 alone lofts ins men shot 125 whales one a day on average you have to make profit out of it otherwise you go bankrupt see you can trade with a country that also has lots on a objection so for us it is Norway and Japan in 2010 lost son sold over 600 tons of fin whale meat to Japan an extremely lucrative business [Music] in Japan around 4,000 tons of whale meat crosses the counters each year this is mainly from minke whales which are killed as part of scientific whaling a delicacy fetching high prices on the markets [Music] although 2/3 of all Japanese people oppose whaling the government is sticking to its strategy without compromise our ultimate purpose is the sustainable use of Whale resources based on scientific evidence therefore we cannot accept strong public opposition to eliminate any welling activity each year the Japanese whaling fleet goes to see from Shimonoseki harbour in the lead the 8,000 ton Nisshin Maru a floating slaughterhouse far from home the fleet hunts any whale that appears before his harpoons in the name of science [Music] they're killing whales as we speak here Japan is operating in the North Pacific sperm whales they're on the water and shortly they'll get to the southern ocean [Music] the Antarctic in the main untouched by humans unique habitat for countless species since 1994 the Antarctic has been a recognized whale protection area where populations much reduced by hunting last century are to recover despite all laws the Japanese government runs a dubious scientific program here which around a thousand minke whales fall prey to there is no way that we can call this as a scientist Japanese wedding program is not the science at all they are simply keep using so the pleats and the papers from the commercial we're together and they are just putting a sign of science [Music] in 2005 the Japanese fisheries ministry announced the largest hunting program since the start of whale conservation to put very large ships down to the southern ocean when all the southern ocean nations do not want whaling including past whaling nations when we know what we've lost down there and we know the mass of illegal harvests that went on down there and we know the devastation that was wrought on the southern ocean ecosystem no there's only one figure for all species down there and that's zero even though Japan appears uncompromising and set to go one nation country is standing up to them a rock star with a mission Peter Garrett singer of the rock band midnight oil and Australia's Environment Minister doesn't want to tolerate whaling in the Southern Oceans any longer and has taken his case to the International Court in The Hague the continuation of whaling for the foreseeable future in the southern ocean apart from a few conservation organizations only in Australia do actions follow words for a few years an armed ship belonging to the fisheries ministry has been watching the Japanese whalers [Music] what's dreamy exchange it's strange about Japan's activities wedding isn't even operating at an economic benefit the whaling Japan's whaling industry has been operating at a loss for many many years it's completely dependent on sub subsidies up to twelve million dollars around twelve million dollars last year spent that had certain subsidies that had to prop up the industry so there's no economic benefit despite or maybe because of existing laws the Australians cannot do more than watch to prove their stock size and etc in these areas in the Antarctic and in the Pacific and they plan to go commercial whaling when they have caught this data the consideration is based on one thing one thing mode will it make money will it not make money if it is not making money now will it make my enough money in the future to overcome the losses that is making now if you want money so badly that you are willing to go up to the most beautiful most magnificent most graceful most extraordinary most awesome creature and kill it and sell and then chop it up into pieces and sell it if that's how bad they want money you can justify to yourself that oh you're helping people you're creating jobs no it's not a good idea it destroys this resource if you want to call it a resource for everybody forever on wreak Havok ski side directly opposite loft sands whaling ships more money is earned with live whales than dead ones over 75,000 people visit the island every year to see the shy marine mammals the whale watching industry is generating 5 million euros for a bankrupt state that wants to become a member of the European Union in distant Hawaii much more is generated every winter hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the island group in order to watch humpback whales carry out their courtship display a seemingly perfect combination of conservation and business [Music] the Gulf of California in the north of Mexico has become a place of pilgrimage for whale watchers throughout the world thousands of gray whales gather here to mate in these protected waters a booming business with growth figures of over 11 percent a year the whales are a great symbol for this beautiful part of nature that we should we should preserve rather than rather than destroy they solve their problems of diverse living methods you know wonderfully extravagant ways that are really amazing it's a bunch of crazy solutions and odd creatures that are out there [Music] despite a multitude of skills the drawl gray whales have not managed to survive in many oceans once widespread they are now extinct in the Atlantic [Music] the main reason we shouldn't kill them is there's not that many of them we don't need to kill them I mean would it be possible you know it's killing some whales justifiable you know I think it's possible that it is you know if you carefully justify there's enough I think the problem with the whaling industry is they're unnecessarily arrogant they always say we're gonna kill whatever whales we want there's lots of them stop telling us what to do places like Norway where I've spent the most time discussing if they think that the rest of the world has unsustainably hunted whales and they've been sustainable which isn't true the region policy is that we can use all natural resources in a sustainable way where we harvest from the surface with these resources and we make no distinction Wayne and the other animals [Music] Norway looks back on several centuries of whaling and has not recognized the international ban on hunting to this day whale meat is often used as a cheap alternative to beef while me is in traditional part of the Norwegian diet it's regarded as a very healthy meat because it's it has the omega-3 lipids but not very much fat so it's fortified by regular people depending on origin while tastes like beef heart rump steak or liver with a slightly fishy aroma while ham is a particular Norwegian delicacy as Japan carried out its hunting activities under the smokescreen of science Norway is the leader in commercial hunting since 1993 ships hunt for minke whales in the High Arctic Norway is able to do this as it vetoed the moratorium even though the demand for whale meat has been decreasing in the last few years Norway has increased its self-chosen target from eight hundred animals in 2005 to over a thousand in future the animals are only supposed to be killed in a own tests speak a different language one in five whales do not die immediately for some individuals it can take an hour to die if the harpoon was unsuccessful a gun with armor-piercing munitions is often used to deliver the coupe des crus whaling is only of economic importance in a few regions of Norway the ideological component is more important hunting whales is supported by the population or is at least not questioned as long as it is a matter of the relatively common minke whales the boiling is not a big issue in Norway it's a big issue for some families along the coast that run the the whaling vessels but for the population as such and in particular in the cities I don't think it's a big issue for many years there has been international resistance under the guidance of the flagship Rainbow Warrior Greenpeace started a campaign in the North Sea in 1999 the aim the in their eyes illegal whale hunting of the Norwegians was to be made public the Norwegian government reacted swiftly warships accompanied the whaling fleet the enemy ship was seized [Music] Norway does not only shoot whales it also shoots nature conservationists if they really wanted to have the world like a whaling industry they have to take on the arguments very carefully which they never do they always get kind of you know angry and say you people don't know anything you know like you can buy t-shirts in Norway save the whales for dinner or intelligent people need intelligent food things like this you know in all it's a boost the declining market in whale meat the Norwegian government is encouraging the Whalers to develop a new marketing concept for whale products it fears the whaling industry could slowly but surely dwindle if sales don't increase despite the bitter taste the campaign appears to be successful in February 2009 Norway exported 6.5 tons of whale meat to Japan I think that our conflicting interests the take of 100 animals per year is less than 1% of the population from our conservation point of view I don't think it's a problem for a from a political point of view I will not know what the future can can bring despite all efforts all of the whaling nations want to have as large a slice of the cake as possible using any means possible the language forum will be some scientists say blah blah blah other scientists say blah blah blah which is the opposite of the first now what's wrong with that what's wrong with that is that the scientists who are opposed to the other one are a tiny little group all of whom are subsidized by the whaling nations we know have a IWC policy that is in line with all national perspective of sustainably use and sustainable development coincidentally is the same policy like like the fool wheelers here like Japan or where it is an open secret that nations such as Japan buy the votes of other countries to further their own interests corruption appears to be a legitimate means to an end as long as there is a compromise at the end which takes account of the interests of the Whalers in many ways it's a demeaning experience to take part in these meetings because you hear such abundant fluent by so many people it's the compromise yeah everyone if Australia don't want to use Wales that's very good I commend them for that but they should never ever try to impose that right other countries that want it also yes welcome I'll give you some nice wheels - we have lost total control on whaling there is no international influence on whaling anymore at all it's completely in the hands of the waiters they do what they like the really important decisions are taken in private behind closed doors even delegates from Japan sometimes get lost on the agenda an application by Greenland they want to expand their traditional whale hunting which they have been carrying out for centuries and now want to be able to hunt the rare and strictly protected humpback whales able to be sustainable is based and local community is not about offshore large ships and then I probably would would see that my views are different to these but would respect their right to use resources in their waters you'll even divine love whales we would never kill wells just for killing sake we would never take more than we need we have been doing this for the four and a half thousand years we have lived here it is deep in our culture the wells and the Inuit are deeply linked to hate for Sami [Music] [Applause] [Music] the cold waters around Greenland are one of the most productive in the world [Music] vast amounts of krill color the sea in the summer months this attracts humpback whales from the Caribbean who fill their stomachs with the small crustaceans in the Arctic waters despite the general ban some people's are allowed to hunt protected whale species however they can only do this if they can show that the killing is part of their tradition and is necessary to cover basic requirements hunting humpback whales did not seem to be necessary for the Greenlanders for many years their food supply seemed to be secured with 4,000 small whales and a small number of bowhead minke and fin whales eating well is as important to us as sausage for the Germans beer for the Germans red wine for the French or rice for the Chinese or Japanese it is part of our lives our culture understanding and tradition the well is not only traditional we also need the meat to be able to survive in this Arctic region here interact is regulating Greenland the world's largest island has 44 thousand kilometers of coastline mostly covered in thick ice an isolated country without animal husbandry or land cultivation a nation without fruit and vegetable plantations the Inuit don't just live with the sea they live off the sea hunting is part of everyday life for these people as it has been for thousands of years [Music] shamon and gang kak lives and hunts in a traditional manner in the old days nearly all inuit had a strong link with nature and her creatures [Music] for my people the whales are really really important because they are the biggest animal or the big water they shrimp from the top of the world down to the bottom of the world and back we go back and forth so they come and tell us what we have seen like oh in bygone days the hunters called the whales with their songs we talk to them and greet them and then we are commissioned if one of them is ready to be taken everyone else would take off except for one ladies are among children but if I only kill them they will be no more for a 400 to food they would always be anymore [Music] while hunting is a symbol of a world that seems to be turning too fast for the green Landers on ships Prowse have found the same highly explosive munitions as on Icelandic Norwegian and Japanese ships the times of respectful treatment between man and whale appear forgotten what remains are 57,000 inhabitants in 18 tones an entire nation catapulted from igloo to Internet in half a century souls torn apart in conflict between tradition and modernity [Music] endemic hunters are carving an orca not long ago Orca was a delicacy today the meat is so contaminated with heavy metals that it is dangerous to consume it define the fat is so toxic now and those women who have eaten lead Walker and fat too much they can no longer breast field the baby cannot eat from your breast [Music] it's illegal it's fun puffy for the child [Music] nobody can take the Greenlanders decision about how to deal with their futures conflicts and problems on their way to independence the whales themselves have become a political football of different interests [Music] I know documents one of the arguments why Greenland wants to become independent is because we want to be able to negotiate our own hunting quotas and not under a different flag if Greenland hunts 10 or 15 humpback whales a year this does not have an impact on the population in Greenland's waters so that means our quota is too low and we would like to have more cannot net upon her [Music] [Music] in the face of current attempts it is unclear how long they can keep the old traditions the respectful handling of Wales at least music appears to connect the Inuit with the modern whale fans of Hawaii I really think a lot of these complex animal sounds are much more like music than they are like language why do I say that because they don't really they're not generally believed at least to stand for complex you know symbolic ideas like language you can't talk to them we can't really speak with them as if what they're saying is language but if you think of it as music then you know you can medially interact the way you might interact with a musician from some other culture from Japan or India they might not share your language but you can play and something musical can happen [Music] every winter David Rothenberg travels to Hawaii to make music with the whales make contact with one of the most intelligent creatures on earth we think they're probably pretty intelligent but what doesn't tell them just really mean when it comes to animals then obviously not interested in the stuff we are like transforming the world using up resources writing books or you know all this kind of create creating transforming our environment they're obviously not interested in that so the kind of intelligence they have is some you know something otherwise but I'm more interested in is the fact that they sing something that's so beautiful and emotional to our ears is that just coincidence or is there something deeply important about how evolution works that shows have this whale it's gone this whole different path of evolution into making a song the humans find so beautiful is that just coincidence and so it was a wonderful way to get people focused and interested in whales most of the kids today if you play the Braille songs they say wow I never heard that I don't know what it is people don't respond just to numbers and statistics and truths and equations some people do very almost everyone does respond however to an emotional feeling something that oh my god that's absolutely beautiful but I think that needs to be done end of conference the Greenlanders got their quota to the joy of the whaling nation 27 humpback whales will die in Greenland's waters in the next few years they are getting ready for a new era of whale hunting in future it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish between tradition culture science and economy I think this is a very important first step to recognize the importance of sustainably use employer resources based on time I believe that we have a commitment to ensure other people people and get the nutrition that they need they have been able to have as the food that is around them what next if after this decision in 2010 I then say well do you want to hunt blue whales then the reaction would be laughter and you would say I am mad but what really is next what is in three years in five the whole thing is a strategy they want to carry out sustainable whale hunting no matter how the rhetoric of the Japanese is clear the aim of the research program is to hunt as many big whales as possible no doubt about it their wish list doesn't only include minke whales but also fin humpback and sperm whales it is only a question of when and under what conditions these species will be hunted again but there is also reason for cheer at least for now this is all politics you have to realize the whaling Commerce is only part is nothing to do the reality just politics [Music] nothing's changed whales are going to be killed and loopholes of scientific whaling within countries sitting themselves killed Loomis based on what they want to do so no it's not a good outcomes [Music] February 2011 Japan recalls its fleet from the southern ocean under intense pressure by whale conservationists however the hunt in the Northern Pacific continues May 2011 lost and claims that the hunt for fin whales in Iceland has been postponed indefinitely [Music] signs of hope but conservationists do not believe in an end to whale hunting the question is will Waylon ever and I think that's another way of saying little ignorant ever end and I fear not now let's talk about the vault opinion of against whaling at Ola I have not seen any opinion poll taken around the world showing the opinion of the world opinion it doesn't exist this is just a cooked up by these active Wireless you know those nations that are doing whaling should probably stop they don't need to do it's not of economic importance it's turned people sometimes argue as if it was by them they don't think it is the majority of people around the world think whales are much more interesting to study and learn from than to kill [Music]

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Rating: 4.4736843 out of 5

Keywords: Nature, Documentary, HD, Animals, People, Places, Adventures, Countries, Wildlife, Technology, Travel, Portraits, Biography, Science, hunting, humpback, Hawaii, hunters, harpoon, killing, whale, shark, quotas, permit, Japan, weapons, Norway, echolot, orcas, sounds, Island, North Atlantic, predator, Greenpeace

Id: LJHXJMEIqBc

Length: 44min 30sec (2670 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 06 2019