Whale Hunting

Whale hunting is used worldwide by different kinds of cultures like Canada, Greenland, Iceland, The U.S., Russia, Japan, and much more countries that do it. It is also part of different types of culture ecology. Whale hunting is mostly for meat and oil and it dates back to around 3000 B.C. later on in the years competitive whale hunting started to become popular too killing off the whales even faster. For example whaling was a cultural ecology for the Makah tribe and whaling was mostly all they talked about and basically it’s their identity

“Whaling is what we do, it's what our songs and stories are all about".

Whale hunting in the Makah tribe is a good example of their Solidarity. Whaling for them brings them closer together because it’s been a tradition for them for years and they also say it’s just part of their roots. If you had happen to stop them from whale hunting it would have them in a Cultural essentialism because to them whaling is life to them. I think the Makah are stuck in this Heroic ethic that they are so blind by their tradition and can’t see the diseased worldview that they are causing by killing all these whales helping to drive them to extinction. The Makah are the only tribe in the U.S. to have a treaty about their whaling. They tried Ethical Dialogue to fix the problem they were having with whale hunting.


In this clip it gives you an idea of the size of this animal and also gives an idea on how smart these animals are in the world of the sea. It even show the solidarity that these animals have as a family or even as a team on how they work together to eat with their ways of communication. In the Gaard reading it gives you basically a choice to chose between the Makah or the whales (gray whales) and in my opinion I rather chose to be on the whales side of this perspective because whale are such beautiful animals that run the ocean. To be killing these animals for a tradition wouldn’t be enough to persuade me to be up for the task. In the readings of Gaard; kheels talks about this too, on how the Makah and their cultural whaling are doing it not for their survival but for their desire. "

The Makahs introduction of cultural whaling fundamentally redfines the ethical
content of this practice

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