Whaling: Right or Wrong?

[SeanQ]

I've been reading this thread with interest and have so far been sitting on the fence.

To me, the cultural issue isn't restricted to any particular nation. North Americans are easily horrified by Asian countries consuming dogs and cats while Indian's are disgusted by North American's eating cattle. The Japanese eat whale. While I personally am opposed to eating whale meat, I understand that Japan doesn't have the agricultural land required to raise large herds of cattle, sheep etc.

The argument of numbers can also be construed. The passenger pigeon, for example, used to roam populate North America in HUGE numbers. Their method of survival consisted of living together in massive flocks. By reproducing at the same time they would ensure their species survival by a method called "predator swamping". Their sheer numbers alone would be enough to overwhelm the predators ensuring that enough young birds would survive to sustain the population. People used to use these birds as target practice. Eventually, the number of birds dropped until the flocks became smaller and smaller. While there were still millions of birds, the flocks were simply too small and too far apart to survive by overwhelming their predators. They population crashed in a short amount of time resulting in the species extinction. Even though the population was large, the amount of hunting was not sustainable for a species that relies on vast numbers to survive. Whales do not rely on predator swamping to survive; the point is that quoting small numbers against large numbers doesn't imply sustainability.

North America has plenty of deer. The reason for this is because we killed most of the deer's natural predators. "Culling the herd" is necessary because in order to keep the ecosystem in balence humans have to replace the deers natural predators. Depending on the species, whales are at the top of the food chain and have few, if any, natural predators. The population is kept in balance by having slower a sexual development and unfortunatly this makes it unstable when hunting is introduced. Is 1,000 out of 700,000 sustainable? I don't know enough about Minke whales to say.


Perhaps when all nations stop treating the oceans, and the entire planet, as an all-you-can-eat buffet we won't have a problem anymore.

 

[Humuhumunukunukuapua'a]

Only the countries that don't actually eat whale gave up hunting them. If it's not for food there is no real reason to - we get oil and glue from other sources these days.

Good point. If Americans needed whales to run their SUVs, we'd have a fleet out there in no time I am sure. It's easy to quit harvesting a resource you don't need or want any more.

On the other hand I would hazard a guess that there are things that you do you should also be ashamed of (I mean...who doesn't?).

Sure there are. I do my best, though. And I wish we all would.

My wife is Japanese so actually I find you telling us that she should be ashamed insulting and offensive. She ate whale as a small child. Nowadays it's not really available and incredibly expensive even if it is. A thousand whales or so per year doesn't go a long way in a country of 88 million. She's not ashamed of it though and has no reason to be - as she has no reason to listen to people from the other side of the world telling her how she should live her life.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to insult or offend you or your wife. But all the same, the fact that she ate whale as a small child doesn't make a difference to me. Times change and traditions must change with them.

In my area, people have historically relied on logging and fishing to make a living. Now that those resources have been plundered and cannot sustain an economy, the children and grandchildren of loggers and fishermen still feel entitled to do what their fathers and grandfathers did for a living, despite the fact that it would mean destroying the last .01% of the redwoods and the last of several species of salmon. Well, it just can't be that way. Those guys have to move on. It's not the same world that our fathers and grandfathers lived in, and we need to change our habits to reflect that, no matter how difficult it may be to do so.

Your point about whale being such a limited resource for 88 million people reinforces the way I feel. If it can't be harvested as a real food source (which it obviously can't), then why harvest it at all? Aren't there enough commodities made even more desirable by the fact that only the rich can afford them? Why create the same market for whale? How does it benefit the vast majority of Japanese? It certainly doesn't offset the fact that other protein sources are expensive, since whale itself is so expensive.

 

[Monkey Knife-fight]

In my book if you eat meat or fish you have no moral position to attack or criticize the Japanese because they eat whale. Take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck from someone else's.

It's not in Japans' interests to destroy whale stocks - they'd have none left to eat if that happened. Japanese marine management is among the most advanced in the world. It's those who are trying to make the destruction argument based on no scientific data, but pure hearsay and wishful thinking, that need to check their facts. Look at the links Andy provided earlier and it should be quite clear to a rational person that the Japanese aren't destroying anything.

Lol well i don't eat fish or meat either so i guess i'm also allowed to voice my opinion. BTW saying that anyone who eats meat has no right to oppose killing whales is inane and a cheesy ploy in a discussion.

So if Japanese whaling is so noble and sweet then why do they sail under the banner of "scientific" catch. I would think everyone can agree that that is a lie...they are using science to stock the shelves with whale meat. Why don't they say "we butcher whales to stick them in cans because we like to eat them"? Japan, Norway, and Iceland consistently fight to raise restrictions on whaling. They want to be able to hunt more minke, but also endangered fin and humbacks. If your only argument is that they only want to kill a few endangered whales then i'll just have to conclude you have no consistent point...you say kill the minkes because they're not endangered, and some fin and humpbacks because...they wanna?

New Zealand sure doesn't like the idea of killing the humpbacks that live in their part of the world.

""It's selling all the meat in the Japanese fish markets and giving free samples to Japanese schools to persuade children that whale is good to eat." "

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10125591


The only reason i can see to whale is "cuz they wanna" which isn't very impressive considering the history of whaling and the destruction it's caused.

Chris

 

[mdb]

I happily eat red meat (and on occasion hunt and dress my own), but this video is simply sickening. Whales ain't cows.

No they are not cows. Having had cow, goat, pig, chicken, turkey, quail, pheasant, rabbit, deer, bear, dog, horse, tuna, shark, flounder, abalone, lobster, sea bass, sturgeon, etc, etc, it seems a bit odd for us to judge another culture. The french love
horse meat, the Vietnamese and Chinese cook up a dog with no problem, we do a pretty good job of depleting the cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, etc. This thread seems a bit lopsided.

 

[Humuhumunukunukuapua'a]

we do a pretty good job of depleting the cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, etc. This thread seems a bit lopsided.

Haven't we had enough of these type of inane comments to know that there is no analogy between hunting whales and eating domesticated animals? You really think we're "depleting" cows, pigs, turkeys, and chickens?

Seriously, dude, give it some more thought. It's not even in the same ballpark.

 

[Monkey Knife-fight]

we do a pretty good job of depleting the cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, etc. This thread seems a bit lopsided.

Lol no we don't. Are you saying cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens exist in numbers that are at risk by consumption? It's not true if you are.

Killing and eating whales is not a sustenance activity for Japan. Like many have said it's hugely expensive. It's a LUXURY. Anyone saying anyone should be able to hunt whales to feed it's peoples is being a little disingenuous. It's not feeding hungry people it's feeding rich people who want to eat something hard to come by. So stop trying to make it sound like we want the Japanese people to starve or even change their main diet.

Chris

 

[Captain CaveMan]

it is same ball park... why does it matter if they are from the ocean.

 

[Captain CaveMan]

there never going to be a end to this thread unless people will stop eating animals.

 

[H2Andy]

What did you mean by "only after the Minke"? By that you meant "Minke and Fin"?

clearly ican't repeat myself on every post or i'd never get anywhere. 10 fins per
year is negligible, and my emphasis was on the minke on that particular post.

i had, however, already discussed the 10 fins per year. it's not rocket science.

Just like introducing mongoose to Hawaii would cause no problems?

how on earth does me saying that hunting roughly 2,000 out of at least 700,000 individuals does not constitute "over-hunting" have anything to do with introducing a
foreign species into an established ecosystem?

it's this sort of distortive argument that turns me off who would otherwise be
my natural allies, since i am very pro-conservation.

the bottom line is that all this hoopla is about a species (the minke whale)
which (a) is not threatened; (b) can sustain 2,000 specimens taken per
year; and (c) has never been extensively hunted or under hunting pressure,
at roughly 100,000 individuals taken over the last century.

now... do you want to argue about something else? this thread was
about hunting minke and how bad that was for the poor minke.

sorry... that just doesn't hold up under the facts

 

[Kim]

So if Japanese whaling is so noble and sweet then why do they sail under the banner of "scientific" catch. I would think everyone can agree that that is a lie...they are using science to stock the shelves with whale meat.

You see, here is a presumption based on a complete falsehood. The simple fact is that they DO do scientific research on the whale they catch. After they have got what they need for that the rest of the whale is given to market so as not to waste it. Just because you think that is a lie doesn't make it so - and it's also very presumptious to think that everyone agrees with you - they don't.
It's clear in my mind that they simply don't catch enough whales to 'stock shelves'. On the other hand from your own earlier quote there are things happening with whale stocks that are not understood - but have nothing to do with hunting. Your quote blamed global warming. I don't know if that's true or not but if it was then it would be fair to say that those killing the most whales are really those that contribute the most to that warming - and guess who that is! It's exactly the facts behind this stuff the Japanese are trying to get to the bottom of. And guess what - it's science.
OK - you don't like the Japanese eating whale. That's fine, but don't try to use spurious untrue claims to try to say that they should be ashamed of themselves when all it really amounts to are personal feelings held by people who are trying to justify foisting them off on to others.