Up until today, I had no idea that an annual drive hunt against pilot whales was taking place in a. But because I was searching for video of New Zealand celebrity dolphin Moko's amazing rescue effort of a mother and off-spring pygmy sperm whale by Hawke's Bay, Mahia.
In my effort, I landed upon this video [WARNING: Depiction of graphic blood-letting of live intelligent creatures]....
....of the annual Faroe Island hunt drive of pilot whales, and my heart broke a little. What the video shows are living breathing intelligent homo sapiens crowding intelligent mammals into a single bay/harbor, and then slaughtering them bloody murder. It is as if the Hellraiser movies become real. And it's humans such as we are doing unspeakable things to other living creatures using hooks and great knives.
I read up on the situation in the entry found at Wikipedia, which led me to this next 20-year old animated film (narrated by Anthony Hopkins)....
....which shows that this has been going on and disturbing people globally for some time.
The Faroe Islands are an autonomous province of Denmark. They have become more and more autonomous since after "World War II" in 1948, and are now dedicated to the premise of independence. Be that at it may, the Faroese people are unfortunately slaughtering whales. Perversely, it it now shown that the eating of the slaughtered whales—which are laden in mercury—is causing the people to literally become mentally retarded, and to be exterminating the Faroese people.
And now it is learned that the whale meat these residents are eating has been poisoning them with Mercury for generations. This is the sort of poisoning that leads to mental retardation in forming human fetus. They are actually taking their ownselves out of the game—by the process of devolution! In fact, two studies, this 20-year (1984-2004) Harvard study of 1,022 Faroe Islands mothers and children from 2004—including this letter from the the chief physician for The Faroese Hospital System stating the mercury found is "not from fish but specifically pilot whale", and this study released last year [PDF] at the International Conference on Foetal Programming and Developmental Toxicity (PPTOX), shows this to actually be the case! In fact, PBS aired this video report on the subject last year. By consuming Pilot Whales, residents of the Faroe Islands are systematically and routinely institutionalizing physical disability and mental retardation!
I am unable to be angry with an entire nation, to be polarized against an entire, unmodernized culture. That sort of anger is uesless—other than to start a fight.
But what I want to do is encourage a change of spirit, and to encourage human growth! Instead, I write this letter to the Faroese people of the Faroe Islands:
Dear Island people of Faroe,BTW, politely emailing may help. Let the Faroese people know that whaling is in fact murder of whales. The Prime Minister Jóannes Eidesgaard's email address is info@tinganes.fo
Reconsider.
If you knew what you were doing, you would stop. The fact is that these are entire families—of whales—you are massacring, generations and families together, and you are doing it with such tremendous violence, and the pain and suffering being caused is without limit. In order to participate in the 21st Century, all of us have had to make changes, and this is one being necessary of you for your entry into our new modern world. From a perspective on this side of that necessary leap, the step you must take to make it here is worth it.
No one wants whale meat. In fact, the animals you slaughter you yourself no longer yourselves use. The EU will not buy products made from whales, for it is tainted morally and now poisonously. Worse of all, as a consequence of whale-killing, your children are being emotionally hampered and amputated, and physically weakened and diminished. Killing whales is to the 21st Century what enslaving people was to the 19th, and restricting human rights was to the 20th. It is wrong, and we know it now.
For your own sakes, as well as for the sake of the intelligent and emotionally sophisticated creatures being caused mortal anguish and harm to perish, stop killing whales.
These are not some hogs, cows, or chickens. They are intelligent just as you and I. And they are not yours to kill. They belong to all of us. Just as you are to us and us to you, they are this world's. Killing whales is wrong. And I am one of at least a billion who are asking you to stop and look at it this way. Just look and see.
Signed,
Mike Mongo
on behalf all of us who care
And lastly, here is a petition to sign. Even this does help as it lets the Faroese people know how many of us care enough about whale killing to be counted as against it.
PETITION TO STOP WHALE KILLING IN FAROE ISLANDS
