Nicholas Kristof New York Times
A beluga whale at the Bronx Zoo
Kaktuvik, Alaska
Let me present to you the only diet that I can XNUMX% guarantee will make you lose four and a half kilograms per week. I mean the traditional Eskimo diet. Even the fattest New Yorkers will lose weight quickly if they eat only whale oil, caribou meat (North American rams) and touch nothing but what they have hunted or killed themselves.
This wonderful idea for a new bestseller that would take advantage of the diet craze came to my mind the day the Inupiat Eskimos, here in Kaktovik, brought in the first whale they hunted this year - they are allowed to hunt three whales a year for eating purposes. The city was like a potion. Schools and shops were closed, and even the US post office, so the entire population of 270 could gather on the beach under the snowflakes, hug the whalers and cheer on the people who brought in the winter's supply of meat and blubber.
The elders spoke the Inupiat language while the younger ones were more informed. One girl looked at the whale which was about 13 meters long and shouted "Hey man, it's heavy!"
Two bulldozers towed the whale to shore. Children danced on his back, then the men began to cut him. One of the residents occasionally fired a rifle to scare away the hungry polar bears. The "mutok" - pieces of skin and fat - began to pass between everyone. "It's good with ketchup," said one man. I tried to taste it and found it was terrible. This is the main reason for the effectiveness of this diet.
This event occurred because despite the self-righteous "save the whales" approach that the United States takes in international forums - it vigorously sided, and rightly so, with the right of American Indians and Eskimos to kill whales as they have always done. Native people in areas like Kaktovik depend on whale meat, and killing them with a bell is an essential part of their culture.
It is true that the American government included the bowhead whale (Balaena mysicetus) on the list of animals in danger of extinction, but it seems that this species has recovered and reached the still modest number of 10,000. Local residents hunt the whales in tiny numbers, and thus they maintain through their own lives without threatening the species.
However, there seems to be a hint of American hypocrisy here. If we support the right of Native Americans to kill whales that are defined as endangered, how can we so vigorously oppose the hunting of whales that are much larger in number, by Norwegians, Icelanders and Japanese, who also have a cultural tradition?
Some species, such as the blue whale, are truly endangered, and their hunting should be strictly prohibited. But there are hundreds of thousands of minke whales (small whales), which do not appear to be endangered.
The remaining argument against whaling is ethical: whales are evolved mammals. This is an argument that justifies personal abstinence from whale sushi, but cannot justify such a claim from the Japanese. Otherwise, the Hindus can ban us from hamburgers.
While there are more Norwegians and Japanese than Inupiat Eskimos, the "scientific" whaling is mostly for sushi, and no one wants to endanger the whale populations. One solution would be to continue the moratorium on large-scale commercial whaling in the open ocean, but allow any people whose tradition includes such hunting to be killed in numbers that do not harm the species.
Yes, whales are magnificent creatures. But so are dogs, which can be found on plates in Asia. If we insist on maintaining the right of the natives of our country to adhere to their traditional diet, we cannot deny similar rights to other nations without being tainted with hypocrisy.
Courtesy of Walla
