They Shoot Elephants Don't They?

It seems everytime you turn around some poor country in Africa is being over run by herds of elephants and the whole discussion of herd culls occur. Most recently, Kruger National Park is thinking of reducing the size of its herd. Link to Article. The issue is that 100 years ago there were about 6000 elephants left in Africa and a century of conservation means that there are currently about 600,000 and they are straining available resources.

Of course there is a very emotional response, the elephant is iconic for Africa in the same sense that the polar bear is iconic for Canada. There is also a real appreciation that elephants are long lived mammals with strong family ties and apparently real emotions. No one would say they are sentient or conscious but some would argue their intelligence.

The question needs to be asked though, what makes an animal off limits for killing? It would appear that a human emotional response to the animal (kittens and puppies which we kill by the thousands each year) scarcity due to human activity (whooping cranes) and perceived intelligence or kinship (the great apes) all mean that an animal should not be killed.

That brings us to the whales. If I understand the biology, whales are huge, long lived mammals (altho Herman Melville calls them fish and he saw a lot of them) that for the most part we hunted to edge of extinction. And yet, just like the elephants, we left them alone for a century and I tell you, you could walk around the island of Newfoundland on the backs of the whales and not get your feet wet. They are everywhere and are responsible for almost any positive news in tourism for the Atlantic Provinces.

We allowed the elephants to recover and their numbers justify both hunting and culling now. We allowed the buffalo to recover and if you go out west you can get a buffalo burger. We have allowed the whales to recover and some populations could easily accommodate a profitable "fishery" (doesn't it bug you to hear of the fur seal "fishery" each spring but "mammalry" sounds too similar to something else).

Link to Cartoon

Now, I like the cartoon "The Other Coast" it is gentle humour with a social and environmental consciousness. I am sure that they would be appalled to find that I have linked their cartoon to this discussion. But it was their cartoon today that got my mind thinking on this topic.

But I have to ask, if the biologists tell us that the populations are large enough and stable enough to allow a monitored whale hunt then why not? What is special about the whales as a species that puts them in the same class as the great apes? It would seem to me that Canada has a significant potential natural resource off its shores that it could be exploiting.

This is a photo I took a while ago when we lived in Newfoundland, a friend had taken us out in his boat and this is a whale in the mouth of St. John's harbour. The towers that you see on the horizon are the St. John's Basilica. What is strange about this is that St. John's harbour is essentially a huge sewer and if you go out at the right tide the water coming out of the harbour is brown with "suspended solids". Even so, there you have a whale frolicking in the harbour. Indeed, you can get an often spectacular live view of the harbour from the other side at this link.

And this one is waving good-bye from the waters of Freshwater Bay close to Cape Spear. Like I say, unless we can articulate a reasoned argument for continued protection I fail to see why limited hunts similar to the ones we have for polar bears, elephants and buffalo should not be allowed.

I have no idea where this came from. It is horrifically hot and muggy here and I guess I am feeling a bit like a beached whale and had to release a conservative rant or start biting people.