Quote by Joe Roman

“The inability of the IWC to enforce its own regulations was perhaps most blatantly exposed by the Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis. He fitted out a whaling fleet trained by Norwegians with a German crew, which operated under several flags, including Panama’s. Although the Central American nation was an IWC member, it was incapable of exerting control over the shipping magnate. According to Ellis, Onassis’s Olympic Challenger ‘took endangered blue whales, female humpbacks and calves, and sperm whales so small that they had not developed teeth’. In a sense, Onassis’s flagrant violations helped the conservationist cause. Here was a fantastically wealthy man bent on the destruction of whales for no apparent reason – he hardly needed the money. Onassis did not bow to international pressure, and he would not abide by treaties. For the IWC , and for whalers who claimed that their industry was strictly controlled and essential to the growing human population, he was a public-relations nightmare. Onassis seemed to relish the role of international renegade: he invited American businessmen and socialites to watch whaling aboard the Challenger. The bar stools on his yacht were covered with the skin of sperm-whale penises, and whale teeth were used as footrests.”

Quote by Joe Roman