If there was one thing I took away from Dr. Aggie Weighill's Environmental Stewardship class, it was a deepening in my sense of responsibility for sustainability, and sustainable practices. The history of human involvement in the Antarctic is not stelar. Have a look below at what has transpired in less then 100 years.

What I find most disturbing regarding human involvement in the Antarctic are the statistics on the number of seals and whales taken between1904 and 1966. In Headland’s book, The Island of South Georgia, he documents the kills during this period of time as being an unsettling 175,250 whales and 260,950 seals (Baucer, 2001). But the grimmest of these details is that in 1926-1927, one single whaling season, 3,689 blue whales were slaughtered. By the 1958 – 1959 whaling season, only one blue whale could be caught, highlighting the near extinction of the population of the largest animal to ever live on earth (Baucer, 2001). Following the closure of the whaling and sealing stations, commercial fishing began in the 1969-1970 season, and since that time, overfishing has nearly collapsed that industry as well (Wilder, 1992 as cited in Baucer, 2001). The fish species most at risk is that Patagonian tooth-fish, and illegal and unregulated fishing threatens to devastate the remaining stocks.

Tourists, especially eco-tourists, are interested in viewing whales, seals and other wildlife in the Antarctic. Tourists are also interested in viewing the abandoned whaling stations as grime reminders of the past, and as a reminder that vigilance is required to prevent such tragedies in the future. Tourists have the potential to become advocates for the living marine resources.