Post #2995

😱The whale graveyards of Chukotka Along the coast near settlements in Chukotka, you can come across so-called whale graveyards. The bones of these massive animals create a truly surreal landscape. It is striking to look at, but for many it is also deeply unsettling and raises uncomfortable questions. To understand it, you have to look back at the history of whaling. At first, whales were hunted for food. Everything changed in the 16th and 17th centuries, when whale oil began to be widely used in Europe for lighting, and later as a lubricant for machinery. With the growth of seafaring from the 17th to the 20th century, whaling turned into a mass industry. The scale was enormous. Around the Shantar Islands, for example, American ships could extract hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and thousands of tons of baleen in a single summer, killing up to 50 whales a day. ⚓ By the 20th century, it had become clear that whale populations were under threat. International regulation began in 1931, followed by the creation of the International Whaling Commission. But its decisions were often more advisory than binding. An attempt to introduce a moratorium in 1972 did not receive full support, and some countries later continued hunting anyway. 🐋 Today, whales are still hunted in a handful of countries, though the approaches differ. In Norway and Japan, commercial whaling remains in place. In Japan, the practice is seen as the harshest, with 600 to 1,000 whales a year taken, including endangered species. In Russia, by contrast, only indigenous subsistence whaling is permitted, and in Chukotka it is allowed only in strictly limited quantities. For local residents, this is not tradition for tradition’s sake — it is a means of survival. In a region where agriculture is barely possible, whales have remained an essential source of food. That became especially clear in the 1990s, when food supplies collapsed and people found themselves on the edge of hunger, forced to return to traditional hunting methods. Today, the situation is gradually changing: food is becoming more accessible, and the younger generation is less tied to this practice. The hunt is slowly fading away, but it will disappear completely only when progress in food production or logistics makes it truly unnecessary. Photo: @mazurovphoto 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Chukotka 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️