Japanese Whaling

[arjan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/12/eawhale112.xml

I've seen stories on a couple of different news channels about it lately and it pisses me off. Everybody knows whales are endangered and they just keep pushing the envelope.
If any countries navy sees a japanese whaling boat they can use it as target practice all they want for what I care. I won't shed a tear over people contributing to that nonsense.

[Bob98SR5]

i am a proponent of leaving these whales alone. i think weve done enough damage to them, including the US and britain in the past. however, the three whaling nations (iceland, norway and japan) will never stop hunting whales and no amount of economic or political pressure will get them to stop, imho. they are all not piddly poor countries and no nation is stupid enough to put sanctions on them over whales.

culturally yes, they have a history of eating whale meat, but i dont see a reason why they should hide it under the guise of "scientific research" or the other reason, "they are competitors of other food sources". why not just be honest and say "we eat whale meat, so mind your own business?" i think people would respect that they be honest, say that they will harvest X amount of whales per year, and do it humanely.

still, i hate seeing these videos of how they let the whales and dolphins suffer. paraticularly cruel is how they dispatch the dolphins

[Seanz0rz]

bob, culturally, i should be killing minorities, taking indian land, running rum, not paying taxes, etc, etc. but i dont do those things, even though they are in my family's past, because i know they are wrong.

sorry, this is unacceptable, along with every other attack on the environment.

[arjan]

There aren't enough whales to feed any nation nowadays, so it's better not to do it at all.
Japan exists because of trade, I don't think they have many resources of their own.
I think trade sanctions would hurt them badly. But then again a torpedo or two from the US, Canadian, British, or Australian navy would do the trick just fine also.
Make target practice from those vessels, especially if they come around our coastlines. That might give them idea how it feels for whales to be hit with a harpoon.

Global warming etc it out of our hands imo, this is something we can collectively do something about. They are very special animals and we should cherish them imo.
Some political fall out is well worth it.

[MTL_4runner]

I think all that crap about eating whales is exactly that, crap. All types of groups claim to be allowed to hunt whatever they want (from well developed countries to native indians) because they've done so for hundreds of years. Well, there weren't 6 billion people on the planet back then either and times have changed so guess what, it's just not allowable anymore. I think it ought to be dealt with just like poaching and if you're out on a boat poaching whales, then it's fair game to get hunted by Greenpeace as well. I think most peoples of the modern world get the big picture but there's always a few that need a little persuasion.

[Bob98SR5]

bob, culturally, i should be killing minorities, taking indian land, running rum, not paying taxes, etc, etc. but i dont do those things, even though they are in my family's past, because i know they are wrong.

sorry, this is unacceptable, along with every other attack on the environment.


sean, c'mon now. you are saying that its part of white culture to "killing minorities, taking indian land, running rum, not paying taxes, etc, etc."? we are talking about a food source that is deemed unnecessary and barbaric due to many reasons, including economic development and differnt cultural norms, not the short lived, historic misdeeds of idiots.

as i mentioned above, i dont like it, i am against it, i think its bogus to say that its for research when in fact, its used a food source. in my last 2 yrs of travel to japan, i've seen whale meat in the markets and satoshi and his wife say that it is still served to school children in japan.

the good thing though, is that they say that whale meat is not considered a primary food source and/or enjoyed by young people. perhaps in the not too distant future the older generation who ate whale meat will die off and the younger japanese will continue to eschew it.

that is all. :)

[Seanz0rz]

oh no, im saying in my family, thats what my ancestors did, not all white people, just my family. :roll:

im saying i have resisted my culture (in which my mom grew up in and resisted, and i experienced from my grandparents to a certain extent) because i knew it was wrong. saying "i do it because its my cultural heritage" is not a license to kill... im sure decendents of south american cultures dont practice human sacrafice today, even though there is evidence they did in the past.

[fustercluck]

I like whales...


























































.....they're tasty and there's plenty to go around.

Okay, that was uncalled-for.

[Bob98SR5]

oh no, im saying in my family, thats what my ancestors did, not all white people, just my family. :roll:

im saying i have resisted my culture (in which my mom grew up in and resisted, and i experienced from my grandparents to a certain extent) because i knew it was wrong. saying "i do it because its my cultural heritage" is not a license to kill... im sure decendents of south american cultures dont practice human sacrafice today, even though there is evidence they did in the past.


sean,

somethings to note again: I am NOT defending whaling. i think its barbaric and unnecesary, esp for industrialized nations like japan. sure, i can understand eskimos who depend on substistance living and cannot easily source food, but industrialized nations, no. further, youre talking to a guy who as a 5th grader got almost the entire grammar school (150) to sign a petition run by Save the Whales. what i have an issue is with the reasons for your argument.

do you have a culture or a history of killing people? they are totally different things, though there is a fine line separating the two. look up any definition you read of the word 'culture. culture is not defined as a short history of misdeeds, but a collection of learned behaviours, beliefs, values, religion, etc (a system) that defines a group of people and how they cat. think of it this way: does your family have generations upon generations of racial hatred; that every generation persecuted people that didnt look like you, didnt share the same belief system, social norms, etc? and did it extend to others within your ethnic background and not just your family? was there a systematic effort by your people to teach from birth, how to hate, how to act upon that hatred, to eat only certain foods, what religion to practice, etc? in modern history, only a few leaders have tried (unuscessfully) to do that. nazi germany comes to mind (i.e. nazi party for the parents, hitler youth for the kids, destruction of books not friendly to the nazi ideology, eradication of judaism, etc). this was a system/culture in the making, but thankfully failed..

also, food sources and murder of human being are totally different and your analogies dont quite fit. i'd say the vast majority of people think that a higher power put animals on this earth as a food source for human beings. to be relevant, japan and other island nations depended on the ocean's animals as a source for food. killing whales back then was a risky proposition, but the payoff was huge to feed their population. your analogy of "my cultural background says that i should continue to kill people" just does not fit. its an argument of extremes unless you equate killing food sources (whales) as the same as killing human beings. if so, my indian coworkers politely ask you to put that cheeseburger down ;)

because we've have different belief systems and cultural norms here in the US, we dont hunt whales for food. but in the same breath, most of us have no problem having the slaughter house kill cows for our cheeseburgers. and that is the thing that i think most of the people here in this thread arent recognizing that cultural relativism can be just as ignorant too.

bob

[Bob98SR5]

Save the whales? Why all the fuss, asks Japan
5:00AM Tuesday November 20, 2007
By David McNeill

Six ships and dozens of men setting out to kill nearly 1000 of the planet's biggest mammals is not an easy event to ignore, but Japan greeted the dispatch of its largest whaling hunt in two decades with a collective yawn.

Local media considered the victory of Mizuki Noguchi in the Tokyo International Women's Marathon a more important story.

While the rest of the world reacts with fury to these whaling expeditions, Japan shrugs its shoulders and says: "What's the fuss?"

The Government's US$1 billion ($1.3 billion) campaign to overturn the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling has been waged largely out of sight.

Most Japanese would rather eat hamburger than whale. So why does Tokyo relish its role as the maritime Darth Vader? The Fisheries Agency, a small Government bureaucracy with control of whaling policy, sees itself as Japan's defender against Western "culinary imperialism" and its right to marine resources. The agency says Japan's low food self-sufficiency - less than 40 per cent - gives it the right to hunt all sustainable sea life, including whales.

The rest of the world, however, doesn't buy the Fisheries Agency arguments that whale stocks have recovered enough to allow managed whaling. The blue whale, the largest mammal on the planet, was hunted almost to extinction by commercial whalers. Just 2000 remain from an estimated 360,000.

After two decades fighting for a return to commercial whaling, Japan seemed finally to have achieved momentum last year when it won by a single vote at the International Whaling Commission conference in St Kitts. But that was overturned this year in Alaska when Japan's "scientific" whaling programme was condemned in a 42-2 vote. A request to allow limited whaling around Japan's own coastline was also rejected.

That loss, and the hypocrisy of allowing Norway to hunt 1000 whales, infuriated the Japanese delegates and sealed the fate of the 50 humpbacks.

"There was nothing on the table except for the humpback hunt, which should be treated with the absolute contempt it deserves," fumed the British commissioner, Barry Gardiner. "It is not a concession to up the stakes dramatically then offer to take it away if we don't give them something."

The Fisheries Agency is well aware of how its hunt will play globally. One of the agency's negotiators, Joji Morinuki said the humpback was a "politically difficult" animal. But it is reaction in America which he will be watching most closely. Activists say the whaling fleet delayed its trip until Sunday to avoid embarrassing Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who was in the US on a state visit.

Paul Watson, of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, had a simple message for the Japanese: "Bring it on. The humpback hunt will be the biggest recruiting tool we have ever had."

The irony, as Japan's dwindling band of whalemeat eaters will tell you, is that humpback doesn't even taste very good.

- Independent

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meaning:

1) the demand for whale meat in japan will not be strong in successive years. hunts will decrease as a result
2) that other nations do hunt whales and are allowed to continue to do so, but japan is always vilified. anyone have an answer for this?
3) there is a debate on whale counts
4) that cultural relativism is applied to other nation's food sources

[MTL_4runner]

The agency says Japan's low food self-sufficiency - less than 40 per cent - gives it the right to hunt all sustainable sea life, including whales.

Good article Bob. See, that's the crock of crap statement from the gov't right there in a nutshell. So if your country becomes horribly overpopulated with not enough land for sustainable farming and domestic livestock for your populus, then you can unilaterally declare any animal species on earth fair game for the dinner table?! Norway or any other UN recognized country is just as backwards for doing the same thing IMHO. Whaling should have stopped as soon as the lighbulb was invented, not continue on for another 100 years and beyond. Hopefully this type of rationalization goes the way of the dodo real quick.

[arjan]

Thanks for the article Bob, I hope the world pulls together on this. We have only 1 shot at saving the whales and it will take a combined effort to be successful.

Maybe we should send them some western whale
http://www.freewebs.com/craaaaazi/fat%20woman.jpg