Our whales have been hunted down mercilessly over the centuries. This treasure of nature, these gentle, intelligent beasts are dying even as we speak, skewered by the cruel harpoons of their avaricious two-legged predators. Action must be taken, for this bloodbath must end. But what can we do?
Farm whales. Ludicrous? Perhaps not.
The Tragedy of the Commons is an economic concept that may apply to the case of the endangered whale. Basically, if a resource is owned commonly, most people will take as much of that resource as quickly as possible, causing the resource to be overharvested. If it's the neighborhood pasture, all the neighbors' cows will eat it till it's gone, and the pasture won't regrow. If it's the forest, all the woodsmen will cut it down faster than it can replenish itself. Each person is afraid of not getting his share, so he takes too much and destroys his long-term ability to get any. This happened every day with my seven siblings and I at dinner: everybody takes too much spaghetti, and in the end, half of it gets thrown out.
The solution is to let people own stuff, id est, private property. If each person owns a parcel of the pasture, he is careful not to overharvest it, because he only hurts himself. He owns it, so there is no risk of someone else beating him to it. This is why chickens are not endangered: they are owned. And the reason that people are willing to own them, raise them and keep them alive (for a time at least) is because there is profit in farming them.
So if the whales are going extinct from overhunting, why not farm them? If blubber is a good worth enough to risk imprisonment, then surely it would be a profitable investment to raise the whales, protect the whales and breed the whales in order to ensure that there is more blubber for sale in the future. Let companies own the whales.
If the same people who are now killing the whales as fast as possible in order to make money quickly were able to harvest blubber legally, fewer whales would die and the population would increase. Why? Because the hunters' self-interest would dictate the logic of allowing the population to grow in order to increase their own long-term benefit.
Old McDonald's cow is still mooing here and there, but it wouldn't be if it were the Endangered Cow of Sheffield County.
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Comments: 2
But more seriously, I think there are two other questions your piece raises. One ethical and another practical. The ethical one is simple: are species ours to own, simply because they produce something we want to consume? This may have been decided centuries ago for the chicken or the cow, but I am not certain we should take it for granted that it is precedent for all species for all time. Is it possible we made a mistake here?
And the practical: If we assume that universal animal ownership is ethical, what are the impacts of farming on a species/biodiversity? Could my whales mate with my neighbors? Might farmers drive less desirable species out for those that produce more oil or meat? Might they allow (encourage) overconsumption of whale food? Would krill be the first to go? In short, are the goals of the whale farmer in sync with those of the planet?
I leave it to others to decide. But in the meantime, welcome to Gather. And thanks for challenging traditional thinking!