Tanno,Hamazaki. “Is American Opposition to Whaling Anti-Japanese?.” Asian Affairs. 2 (Summer, 2000): 81-92. Web. 27 Sept. 2011.
This paper basically brought up the idea that the US may be targeting Japan's whaling out of alternative motives. Scholars wonder why the United States focuses on solely Japan's whaling and not other countries such as Norway who do the same amount of commercial whaling. The paper argues that the US may be frustrated by Japan's recent economic success and is attacking Japan's loop-hole in the whaling restrictions. A study was conducted in the form of a survey to research this further. I think that this would be a good point to make in my counterarguments. There are a lot of politics that are involved in the whaling issues and this source would aid me in analyzing to what extent politics and money play a part in commercial whaling and whether countries are pro-whaling or anti-whaling.
The whaling industry throughout the world has sky rocketed due to a higher demand for whale products. The main reason for whaling is to harvest whale meat and oil. Whaling has been occurring since 3000 BCE and is still practiced today.Industrial whaling came about in the 17th century sparking the whole domino effect seen today. Nationally competitive whaling companies rose around the 18th and 19th century. In the 20th century the whaling industry introduced whale harvesting and this has amounted to excessive amounts of whales being harvested. Whale harvesting has put a huge dent into the whale population and has put some species on the endangered list. In 1986 the International Whaling Commission was put into effect, banning all commercial whaling. This was put into effect in hopes of letting the whale population to recover from all of damage done. However, even with these restrictions, not much progress has been made.Only one whale specie, East Pacific grey whale, has actually recovered since the act was put into effect. The West Pacific grey whale, a close relative of the East Pacific grey whale, is actually near extinction with only 100 left in the world. Seven of the thirteen great whales species are endangered.
The main contributors in the whaling industry are Canada, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the United States. Currently Japan has been put in the spotlight for their whaling industry specifically because they are pro-whaling, even though Norway and Iceland are also the second and third largest contributors. The whaling methods are not humane in all cases and the amounts of whales still harvested are excessive. Japan also uses the loophole to gain whale meat. Japan sends out scientific researchers to harvest whales for research, but then the meat is collected and sold. There are countries on both sides of the argument pushing for pro-whaling and others that are anti-whaling. In my opinion the whaling industry should either be completely stopped or have stricter regulations. Not only is it hurting the whales it is also affecting our quality of food. High mercury contents have been found numerous amounts of whale meat. This high content of mercury can also be extremely damaging to people.
Here is a documentary (The Cove) that is directly related to whaling in Japan. It delves into the controversy with the whaling industry on a personal level: "Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, The Cove follows a high-tech dive team on a mission to discover the truth about the international dolphin capture trade as practiced in Taiji, Japan. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide."
The Elastic Body Image article is basically about how the changes in media have been correlated with eating disorders and warped self body images in American society today.
