Until you get put on the endangered species list.

Some of you may not agree with the aggressive manor that the Sea Shepherds of the Steve Irwin, Bob Barker, and Ady Gill use in attempt to eradicate illegal Japanese whaling.

But I believe their cause and their mission is brave and necessary. Whales are amazing, beautiful creatures, and in 1966 it became illegal to hunt them. Most nations respected this ban besides the Soviet Union, who continued to hunt them until the 1970's. Now, it's only the Japanese (who claim to be legally killing and collecting for "research").
Humpback whales have been marked for extinction from planet Earth. The Japanese quota for this years hunt? 50 Humpback whales.
The destruction of their habitat is also to blame for their perilous situation. Humpback's migrate from Mexico, Hawaii, and Japan to Alaska's Glacier Bay to feed on krill during the summer. This bay receives runoff from the Tongass Forest, and as long as it was a protected wilderness area the bay was safe. That was until 2003, when the Healthy Forest Initiative opened 9 million acres of this forest to logging. Now this bay is at risk of runoff that contains sediments and nitrates from logging that can kill the krill.

Currently there are somewhere between 30,000 - 40,000 whales left in the entire world. This is approximately 1/3 the number of whales that originally roamed the seven seas.

I don't want to make it all about the whales though...there are far too many creatures that your children, and grandchildren may not ever know. The immensity of it overwhelms me, and I just don't know how I've gotten this far in life without deciding to make wildlife conservation my life's work. I mean, the most meaningful tattoo I have is the World Wildlife Fund logo...it only makes sense. Feel free to browse the list of endangered species for yourself. It's incredibly disheartening to see, and know there's little I can do at this point. Hopefully I remain focused on my goal, as far as my education is concerned, and can one day do my part in the struggle to conserve so many of this planet's most important natural places these creatures call home.