Banned for more than a decade, commercial whaling continues to deplete the whale population. Whether the hunting of whales is illegal or not, many countries continue to ignore the law. Whales are normally hunted for meat and lamp oil (Issues & Controversy, 2003). The issue revolves around whaling being inhumane, as these mammals are highly intelligent and often are killed only to die a slow and painful death. This day and age, it is no longer feasible to hunt whales. Most countries had stopped whaling by the 1980’s (Issues & Controversy, 2003). The ban was proposed to protect endangered whales while their population was revived (Issues & Controversy, 2009). Preserving the whale population for the future is important and the ban on whaling was…show more content… Commercial whaling ended in the 1920’s, but continued to thrive in other countries (Issues & Controversies, 2003). The whaling trade is driven mostly by greed and with the use of the technological advances in whaling ships, not even the fastest whale can survive the attack. Early whale hunters used hand-thrown harpoons, but with the Norwegian invention of the explosive grenade harpoon, species of whales dwindled quickly (Campaign Whale, 2016). The whaling industry seems to elude the rules set by the International Whaling Commission and over 25,000 whales were killed against the command of the IWC during the ban (Campaign Whale, 2016). The overkill of whales from the beginning has repeated itself many times over throughout the years and today there is not even one single right whale found in the Bay of Biscay (Campaign Whale, 2016). Whaling is a brutal and shameful business that continues to flourish even with the millions of people against it. Each year, 16,000 whales have been slaughtered for the past 83 years (Geer, 2014). People have to remember that as the whales are driven to extinction, the marine ecosystem is affected significantly. Whales are an important part of the oceanic environment and commercial whalers are deleting these