Canadian hunters set out to kill trapped whales

[Swede]

A team of hunters will kill about 80 beluga whales trapped in a frozen waterway on Canada's Arctic Coast in what local officials said on Thursday is an act of mercy.

The whales have no hope of escape to the open sea after a severe snow storm closed off the long inland waterway and reduced the number of breathing holes in the surface ice to one from eight, said Paul Voudrach, chairman of the Tuktoyaktuk Harvest and Trappers Committee.

He said a team of 10, including eight local hunters, set off from Canada's northernmost mainland community, Tuktoyaktuk, in the Northwest Territories, on Thursday morning to kill the whales.

"There's no more options except to harvest them," Voudrach said. "We don't want them to suffer, we don't want them to starve, and the breathing holes will eventually close up."

He also said rescue options that involve relocating the animals would be "next to impossible" given the scope of the waterway, made up of a string of lakes about 40 kilometers (25 miles) long with water up to 30 meters (100 feet) deep.

The hunters will harpoon the whales one by one as they come up for air before shooting them in a process that will take about two weeks, during which time the whales' blubber will be cut and stored for distribution to the local community.


http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-11-16T212155Z_01_N16415648_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-ENVIRONMENT-CANADA-WHALES-COL.XML&archived=False

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. couldn't they create more breathing holes?

such a shame, poor whales. :(

[bluerum]

3. They (the whales) will starve. nt

[THUNDER HANDS]

4. dump some fish in there

do something, i mean, we're not talking 80 rabbits here. These are whales.

[Swede]

5. Rabbits,whales,fish, they all want life.

:shrug:

[bluerum]

6. Feed 80 whales for an 8 month Alaskan winter? Can the govenor

of Alaska find a way to organize this?

It is heartbreaking, especially after reading this Wikipedia link about Belugas.

[NOLADEM]

2. Seems easier to maintain holes than kill 80 whales

But then, I don't want to sell their bodies, so I guess I'm not properly biased.

[citygal]

7. Beluga Whales

Agreed...especially considering the fact that the Canadian government has continued killing baby seals. The justification is that they are depleting the seafood population. It is all pretty barbaric and sad. Anyway, aren't beluga whales endangered?? I thought I just read that they only believe there to be about 3,000 in the wild...

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. Wow! 1st Post!

Welcome to DU:hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi:

[Benhurst]

9. A sad business.

:hi: Welcome!

[newyawker99]

18. Hi citygal!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Harper_is_Bush]

10. Are you a biologist?

Do you really believe that these whales are victims of greed?

Do you have any understanding of the Canadian North and the real prospect these whales have?

The people in the community were doing all they could to get these whales out. They were cheering for them. It's a tragedy all around but if you accept that they're doomed then would you agree that killing them now is the most humane and sensible option?

[Tellurian]

11. Someone can't send an icebreaker to clear a path?

someone's not trying hard enough!

[Marrah_G]

13. It wouldn't be that easy

You have to consider the thickness of the ice and weather conditions, if the ice is thin enough is there a ship capable in the vacinity, etc. The Artic seas are no easy and I think it would probably be extremely dangerous for any crew. The ocean there is a killer, literally a killer.

As much as I would love to see them saved, I think that the people know it is a lost cause and rather then watch them suffer and die slowly, some good can come out of it. It is a heartbreaking thing to happen. They are beautiful animals.

[Tellurian]

14. It wouldn't be so upsetting if it were 8 or 10 whales..

But 80 whales ?

What kind of people are we anyway? We can send people to the moon;
Threaten a sovereign country with force if they are in noncompliance;
Drill for oil in the Antarctic; set off bunker buster bombs in the desert..

But there isn't a soul on earth that can figure out how to get 80 whales
who are stuck in a channel out to open water ?..

Ridiculous!

Doesn't say very much about the chances for the survival of mankind; does it?

Yep, just like we're going to cure global warming..la-di-da!

[Harper_is_Bush]

12. My understanding is that unless superman shows up these whales suffocate

Maybe better to harpoon and shoot them (which they're doing simultaneously) than have them suffer that death.

[Lisa]

15. and from what I've heard, it will be a difficult trip for the hunters

Going out on the ice can be quite dangerous, and they are taking a risk (and committing a lot of resources) to get out to where the whales are. I don't hunt, myself, but I have lived up North and I have spoken to some of the Inuit and Dene who live on the land. These are subsistence communities, and it can be quite difficult to get enough money together to buy fuel for the boats and snow machines, winter clothing, ammunition, and all the things that will keep you alive out there. Hunters have to plan and budget carefully for their trips, and most of them can't afford to just go out whenever they feel like it, or as recreation. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people who have volunteered are going to be foregoing hunting trips they had planned for later in the season, because they just won't have the resources to go out again, even to get meat for their families.

It's kind of analogous to me having to clean out my bank account and max out my credit cards, to fly cross-country for a job interview next week, without any assurance that I would get the job -- and not knowing how I'll cover rent and groceries if I don't.

Someone earlier suggested keeping watch and cutting more holes in the ice. I am sure that the people up there had thought of that (they are pretty creative), and under other circumstances they would try, but it sounds like that would take an enormous effort through several months of winter. Most of the far northern aboriginal communities I've visited just don't have enough people or resources to do that. As for the icebreaker option, it would be a job getting the icebreaker in there in the first place, since the whales are trapped in an enclosed body of water ... and the boats which are available are just not heavy enough to break through the ice. Besides, the whales are getting tired, and starting to run out of food ... even if someone could clear a large area by mechanical means (not that I'm advocating that the US send over a bunker-buster bomb!) and keep it that way all winter, I don't know whether it would work. Likewise, bringing in food (how? by truck? by air?) would also be tricky, because throwing dead fish at wild whales might not succeed. I remember when the Chicago aquarium people rounded up a couple of belugas when I was working near Hudson Bay, and the animals were pretty freaked-out and had to be coaxed to eat (I think they had to use live fish too). I couldn't imagine trying that on dozens of belugas.

I don't think that they are so biased by the possibility of profit that they are refusing to think of other options ... I doubt that they will be selling the meat. I should state that I'm not in favour of uncontrolled aboriginal whaling in the Arctic or Pacific coastal areas (even though some scientists have said that I'm being too sentimental and politically-correct). Neither do I believe that absolutely everything about First Nations culture is bound to be better than what Western societies (or scientists) come up with. But I feel sorry for the hunters -- they don't like the thought of shooting trapped animals, and they're terrified that southerners will view them as cruel and greedy. (Historical note -- a few decades ago, a visitor shot some film of a Dene food cache -- some caribou carcasses laid out and frozen on the coast of Hudson Bay -- and the southern papers started reporting that the natives were killing everything in sight. It contributed to the community being taken away from their ancestral lands and relocated to a town ... it turned out to be a social and economic disaster for them, with a lot of people getting sick and dying.)

[Nihil]

16. You know, I'd put a lot more credence in the "it's the best way" crowd ...

... if the "local official" hadn't used the word "harvest":

> "There's no more options except to harvest them,"

It would probably have also helped if this "local official" wasn't the
chairman of the euphemistically named "Tuktoyaktuk Harvest and Trappers
Committee" ...

"Goshdarned shame that we've got to harvest them inland rather than
sail out in the winter storms to do it ..." ?

[impe]

17. Hunting/Harvesting

act of mercy no doubt.....NOT

80 whales and this is the best
they can come up with...harpooning them.
pathetic.

[NickB79]

20. Find 960,000 lbs of fish and have at it

No one on this thread has yet proposed a feasible way to save these animals.

Killing them rather than letting them starve or drown does indeed sound merciful, considering how painful either natural option is.

[NickB79]

19. Some of the replies here make me shake my head

For those of you suggesting that the whales be fed through the entire 8+ months until the sea ice opens up again, do a quick Google search on the diet of a beluga whale. You will find that an adult beluga eats roughly 50 lbs of food per day: http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Beluga/bediet.html

For 80 whales, that amounts to 4000 lbs of fish and squid, DAILY. Multiply that by 8 months of required feeding, and you are looking at an investment of 960,000 lbs of seafood. Not only does someone have to supply the fish, but also transport it and hope that the whales will eat dead fish instead of live ones. Even if we assume a large number of this pod are small adolescents, you are still looking at 750,000 lbs or more of food.

Similarly, the idea that people could continue to cut breathing holes in the ice would require a substantial team working 24 hrs a day for 8 months straight. This region will be seeing extremely cold temperatures in month's time, at times reaching -40F or lower. At these temperatures, breathing holes could ice over in a matter of minutes. Workers would have to be monitoring the holes several times per hour, every hour, and clear them before they freeze over completely. A pod of beluga whales as large as this would require a large area to breath through as well. A hole 100' by 100' may be required just to allow the whales to breath without fighting and drowning one another.

As sad as this is, killing them and using them for food, as these people will do, is the only logical solution at this time. There are no reasonable measures left to either remove them or maintain them into the spring. All that is left now is deciding how they will die. A relatively quick death from a harpoon followed by a bullet to the brain is far better, IMO, than a slow death by suffocation or starvation, and letting the local people use the bodies is preferable to letting them rot.