An environmentalist and Bayelsa State Coordinator, Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Mr Alagoa Morris, talks about the environmental, health and cultural implications of the recent feasting on a whale washed ashore by some Bayelsa residents, in this interview with SIMON UTEBORIt didn’t come to me as strange because right from my childhood, I have been hearing about such in communities along the Atlantic coastline.
But the other side of what our people say about whales is that they sometimes save fisherfolks whose boats capsize in the sea – the whales bring them back to the shore . This should have been a consideration; not to eat such a friendly creature. You will be maimed if you prevent them from going ahead to dismember the unlucky creature. Our people are still very far when it comes to issues of conservation of wild or aquatic lives. The only thing that guides our people in terms of what to eat or not, is tradition; that is, a cultural heritage whereby certain animals are not eaten or killed because they serve as totem.
What should people have done in these two scenarios – if such an animal was washed ashore alive and if it was washed ashore dead?
Hunger has turned Nigerians to vultures
We are hungry...what else do you expect?
Poverty is the major reason for this action!