Whales Suffers From Loneliness Due to Over-Hunting, Might Lose Will to Live
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 06.23.08
Whales: "Goodbye Cruel World"
We're not whale psychologists, but according to Yves Paccalet, a French naturalist, over-hunting is causing loneliness in the surviving whales and can even make them "lose the will to live". The highly intelligent and sociable mammals could be "so exhausted from their combat with humankind that they have simply have given up the fight," according to him.
Paccalet, who worked with world famous marine pioneer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, explains: "To reproduce, whales need a large number of individuals to ensure that they meet, frolic and excite each other. Otherwise, the species may give in to a kind of sexual melancholy and simply stop breeding."
Whale Population Statistics
Despite an international moratorium on whale hunting in 1986, Japan, Norway and Iceland continue to cull more than 2,000 a year for their meat and oil.Some species like the North Pacific and North Atlantic whales have been reduced to just a few hundred survivors, and could be extinct within decades. [...]
Blue whales have recovered from a low of 400 in the 1970s to around 2,200 today, but that is believed to be only one per cent of their numbers 500 years ago.
A 2007 study by the Iceland Marine Research Institute revealed a 'significant decrease' in the population of minke whales since 2001. Japan and Norway killed more than 1,600 minke in 2007.
Meanwhile, Japan threatens to start commercial whaling again. This is even worse when you know that the Japanese don't even eat as much whale meat as some of their country's fishermen catch. They even make dog food with some of it.
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More on Whales Losing the Will to Live
Lonely whales are 'losing the will to live' due to over-hunting
Dog food!?! damn
dog food, really? What is the reason for that? Is it politically motivated somehow, is there some whale-hating conglomerate out there, is there some spectacular potential for human advancement from wiping out whales? I don't get it.
Whales losing their mojo? Ever hear the term anthropomorphism .
I am 100% against whale hunts, but Japanese and Norweigians hunt minke whales (which number somewhere around 184,000). The big whales, which are the most endangered, are not supposed to be hunted at all. Whaling almost wiped out Blues and Right whales, but they are slowly coming back (the Rights being the most endangered still).
They are beautiful animals with a very slow reproduction cycle, so protection is absolutely required, but please do not slide off into new age nonsense.
Japan, Norway and Iceland are destroying our world heritage !!!
Such rudeness...shame on you Japanese, Norwegians and Icelanders !! Call your governments to stop this horrible farce.
The day they should pay for the damage they are creating, they will stop their destructive behavire.
yeah, it doesn't make sense.
I suggest greenpeace start arming their boats taking on a pirate role of sorts, sinking whaling vessels and capturing the crew. pillaging and looting anything to do with whaling.
fight ridiculousness with ridiculousness i say, yar!
Joe, there's nothing new age about an expert in marine life saying that social animals can be affected by a huge decrease in population (a few hundred years ago, you couldn't throw a rock in the ocean without hitting a whale).
"but please do not slide off into new age nonsense."
if you are referring to whales "losing the will to live in the face of incredible adversity". what makes you think it is not possible? It is certainly true for human's which are a social animal of this world, why could it not be true for another social animal? Especially if an expert on marine life is the one reporting findings on it.
Hate to dogpile you, Joe, but acknowledging the social and emotional lives of other mammals is hardly new-age nonsense. Just take a look at what happens to an elephant herd when the matriarch gets culled or the effects on the development of juvenile elephants when they're removed from their herds. It's nonsense only if someone believes that animals think and feel as humans do.