With governments refusing to help ships that engage in it and ‘peace’ activists apparently willing to ram ships to prevent it, one assumes that whaling is a grave moral evil. It is, apparently, obviously so. Unfortunately, I fail to see why.

How is killing a whale any different from fishing for marlin or shark or tuna?

Of course, whales are more intelligent than sharks. But as Peter Singer infamously pointed out pigs are more intelligent than newborn infants yet we should not consider killing infants and newborns as on par with pig farming.

True some whales are endangered but so are some other forms of sea animals. Some species of shark are endangered and some species of whale are not endangered. Of course, whales are beautiful, wondrous creatures, but I happen to think this is true of numerous animals and landscapes. Sharks are incredibly slick and beautiful.

Harpooning is arguably cruel causing a long and painful death but that is not an issue of whaling. It is an issue of the method. So find a quicker method of killing them. Moreover, many methods of spear fishing and fishing with a hook are arguably cruel as well.

As I see it, provided one kills animals in a humane manner and one does not hunt them to extinction, then there is nothing wrong with whaling. Not just for ‘research,’ but for commercial purposes.

Further, I fail to see why one would ram boats over this issue. After all our government kills over 16,000 unborn humans in state hospitals every year. Now if a person were to damage equipment and ram heavy machinery into clinics over this. What would we call such a person? A fanatic? A terrorist? After all it is not like it is a blue whale it is only a human.