Saturday, November 13, 2004

Chukchi : whale hunting


There are no universal rules without exceptions.

I was lazying around with the idoit box and came across an interesting documentary, its wrt the whalehunting by the chukchi. Chukchi is eastern part of siberia where the winter temperatures go down to -30 degrees Celsius.

Chukchis staple food had been whales for the past 2100yrs. As everyone is aware that whales went into the endangered species list and thereby hunting of whales is banned. Well I cant imagine what could happen to me if they said eating rice(my staple food) is banned. So when the chukchis faced this inevitable world wide ban there was a literally no option but to starve to death.

So the International WHAT SO EVER committee came up with an amendment : Only Chukchis can hunt whales!! well it didnt end there it went on to say that their hunt should be very humane and the chukchis should only use their indigenous ways.Chukchis cannot use modern boats for hunting or towing the whales to shore.

Every hunt should be informed to the officials so that it can be monitored. Once they manage hunt and tow it to the shallow waters they cant use any machinery to get it to the land. A 100 men could only manage to put a token effort to get it to the shore.Finally they endup slicing it in the shallow waters itself.

The clause to the amendment is more of a political sadism.

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