An Open Letter to the IWC (International Whaling Commission)

Dear Sir,

Thank you so much for the recent IWC minutes/report. Although I am not a member of any particular IWC committee, I am deeply interested in preserving the oceans, whales and sea life. I may currently live in Arizona, but I spent most of my life in the Pacific Northwest and still spend months at a time there on our small tugboat.

Last  year we published Saving Our Oceans. There is a chapter in the book about the IWC and your organization is mentioned several times throughout. Unfortunately, due to all the brouhaha over Covid-19 and the uprising in the United States over "police brutality" this book has not sold as well as hoped and anticipated. (The funds from the book are earmarked for the Friday Harbor Whale Museum and for the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition.) It has been an eye-opening realization for me that most people don't really seem to care all that much about whales, ocean pollution, etc. In fact, before a person finishes reading this blog, more than a thousand pounds of plastics is dumped into the ocean. The people who do care seem to be intensely concerned, but these people wouldn't need to read the book - they already know the issues.

I can  understand the apathy of many people. Even though the Saving Our Oceans was written to introduce people to the issues of plastic pollution and the slow death of the ocean and its inhabitants, people who do not live by the sea have their own problems to deal with. People who live in Kansas or Oklahoma might care, but they have their state's immediate issues.  Other topics are also covered in the book, from plastic pollution and the failure of recycling, to dying aquifers around the globe, fresh water pollution, the Rights of Nature movement, the demise of the Southern Resident Pod of Orcas etc. 

 I was also very disturbed to read that the Japanese withdrew from membership in the IWC last year and are continuing to slaughter whales. Disgraceful and barbaric. Their dolphin massacres are totally shameful. So is the captivity of orcas. It's beyond belief that so-called "civilized" people do these things. 

Yours truly,

Becky