Commercial Whaling to continue

[Keithscatch]

This is bad news and something I feel is sad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6059564.stm

[nboucher]

A lot of ignorance there. It's one thing to harvest a few whales for food (though I have a hard time with that even) but to export them purely for commercial gain? That really makes no sense.

[Panamoka_Bassin]

Yeah, its a shame the way man treats the earth.  I get very sad at the thought...

[Keithscatch]

I just don't undrstand man sometimes. Hunting Whales? WOW. Just hard for me to grasp....

[justfishin]

That is just wrong. Why on earth would they want to do this. Sad. The only time I do not have a problem with it is if the Inuits do it, and then I am not happy about it but, they use it for food and it is steeped deeply in their culture.

[Keithscatch]

I found this quote. Kinda says it all really.....Sad:

Maybe Western citizens of the Free Willy generation are in a minority. Maybe the wider world really does not care more for whales and dolphins than it does for chickens and cockroaches.

Found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5093684.stm

[fourbizz]

I am not for hunting whales and this is a purely objective question, but why are whales held in such high esteem? Clearly they should not harvest the endangered fin whale, but what about the menke that is apparently thriving in their area? According to THEIR numbers, which may obviously be skewed, 33 menke whales represent about .75% ( i think) of the total population. Why does everyone always tense up at the mention of harvesting whales? Just curious.

[Guest avid]

I think thats a really good question.  Why is it ok to use huge trawlers to vacuum up tons of fish with virtually no outcry, but mention killing a whale and people get spastic.  

I can only guess that it is because whales are such truly magnificent creatures.  They really are a thrill to watch.  

The other reason I suspect is because they are "hunted" not fished for.

The modern whaleing vessel uses a harpoon jettisoned by an explosive charge.  It's like a cannon that shoots a huge spear.  Not a pretty site.

Whales are a valuable natural resource and must be protected, but regulated hunting is a sensible appraoch.

[Keithscatch]

For me it is because a Whale & Dolphins are mammals and a fish is a fish. Two different things. One is closer to us then the other. BTW, I get upset with Japan's and many other Asian nations ways and how they abuse fish populations. I get bothered when I see how Japanese trowlers sweep the oceans of Sharks and pull them in and cut off their dorsal and anal fins and then dump the body back into the Ocean. They do this so they can have shark fin soup. What a freaking joke.

I also think that Norway and Japan could care less about mammals or Whales or anything but themselves and if there where only 10 left in the world they would see who could kill the last one. 2,000 of one animal in the world is by no means allot. Now if there was 2 million then that would be different. Whales are teetering on extinction and these idiot nations think they are abundant again and want to hunt them down.

I get upset about this the same way I do when people hunt Bear, Tigers, Lions, Elephants, etc. WTH? what is up with that? Just blows me away. I do not respect hunting that is done for anything but for survival. That is how I look at things. I don't believe God created animals so that we as humans could hunt them for sport to see how many heads, rugs etc that we can put in our houses.

Remember the days when Buffalo roamed the prairies of America by the millions? Well, they were gunned down to near extinction by the American Cowboys who thought it fun to target practice while traveling on railroads. Yep, sure is fun to just wantonly kill animals with a rifle.

Some people groups have bizarre appetites and desire to eat bizarre things out of enjoyment. Do they really need to eat Whale? Is their survival linked to Whale blubber, oil, meat? Maybe some eskimo tribes but not folks in Norway or Japan.

That is the issue for me and why I get bothered by it.

[Dan:]

They have been doing this for years, those countries have long traditions of whale hunting. Personally, I don't really have a problem. If they cause a species to go near extinction, then they should stop, but other than that, I don't really have a problem with it. Whales are sources of food just like deer, fish, etc... And they are animals. Humans are more important than animals. Period.

and btw keith, most of times when people hunt stuff like lions, elephants, etc...they have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars if they kill one. That money goes back into conservation efforts so it usually ends up helping the animals ironically enough.

[Guest avid]

The herds of buffalo (bison) that were decimated was not done solely for the joy of killng animals but was in fact national policy.  The Native Americans (Indians) of the great plains region relied on Bison for virtually everything.  Food, clothing, nothing was wasted.

By killing all the bison we exerted enourmous pressure on the Indians to be herded onto reservations.  Which of course we threw them off of once something of value was found on the land we promised them.  

This is not "liberal media" garbage.  This is recorded, factual history.

I always get a kick when Americans rant against genocide and toppling horrible dictators who are killing their own people.

The fact is pretty clear that one of the most stunning examples of succesful genocide is the eradication of native Americans.

Most people currently calling themselves native americans today have far less than 25% native american heritage.  There are relatively very few native american families who do not have mixed blood.

To get back on topic, I re-state my position that harvesting any natural resource including mamals (ever eat a steak?) is completely valid.  As a conservationist I am concerned that NO species become extinct.  That being said I see no problem with utilizing the flora and fauna God created according to the law and our own sense of responsibility.

[Raul]

I found this quote. Kinda says it all really.....Sad:

Maybe Western citizens of the Free Willy generation are in a minority. Maybe the wider world really does not care more for whales and dolphins than it does for chickens and cockroaches.

But whales don 't multiply as fast as roaches and chickens to my knowledge.

[Fisher of Men]

I found this quote. Kinda says it all really.....Sad:

Maybe Western citizens of the Free Willy generation are in a minority. Maybe the wider world really does not care more for whales and dolphins than it does for chickens and cockroaches.

But whales don 't multiply as fast as roaches and chickens to my knowledge.

Raul, dang it. . . this was a serious discussion!  Now, you've gone and made me laugh!!  

Now, back to the discussion.  You guys have brought out some good points.  I, too, have heard that Russia, Japan, and China are some of the worlds worst "rule breakers" and "overharvesters" of fish in the ocean.  But, what, if anything can we (the citizens of these United States) do about the situation.  Who, in fact, polices the oceans?  It's not like there's some worldwide game-warden to fine these individuals, is there? I don't see any solution to the matter, other than just TCB on our part.  

[SPEEDBEAD.]

I get upset about this the same way I do when people hunt Bear, Tigers, Lions, Elephants, etc. WTH? what is up with that? Just blows me away. I do not respect hunting that is done for anything but for survival. That is how I look at things. I don't believe God created animals so that we as humans could hunt them for sport to see how many heads, rugs etc that we can put in our houses.

Being as though you seem religious, I will pose my question this way...

Did God then put bass in Florida and Texas so that you may fish for sport? In reading your posts, you are a staunch supporter of catch and release fishing which ultimately is for SPORT.

Just me being me....

Wayne

[nboucher]

Great discussion. Here's my .02:

When I was starting out as a reporter (before the dinosaurs went extinct), a colleague of mine reviewed some whale books and titled the review "Cetacean Chic." Whales, eagles, bears, lions, tigers, etc. are all big, dramatic animals that the average person naturally feels more snuggly toward. They're cool because they capture people's imaginations better than sparrows or eels, say. This is not rational or scientific, but it's human nature, and politicians, who make funding decisions, know that saving the whales gets votes.

Biologists who are charged with trying to save endangered plants and animals have long been frustrated by this. Back in 1980, I reported for the NY Times Mag on a bird called the dusky seaside sparrow, which is now extinct, and which was in fact the first vertebrate to go extinct since the endangered species act was passed in 1973 to prevent such a thing. At the time of my article there were about 13 individuals left, all males. Scientist after scientist told me that saving that bird would have been very inexpensive (I'll spare you the details), but no one outside the scientific and conservation community cared about saving a sparrow; all the money was committed to falcons, eagles, grizzly bears, etc. Is saving endangered grizzly bears more important than saving dusky seaside sparrows? I don't know. The problem is that there isn't enough money to save everything, so we're left playing God. We have to make decisions about what to save, and they should be as rational as possible. The endangered plants and animals that get funding to buy habitat, etc., are the ones that have a future; the ones that get insufficient funding will probably perish at some point. These are decisions we can't afford to make based solely on sentiment and cuddliness.

As for whales specifically, it happens to be a species where reproduction is slow, so any major hit on the species takes a long time to recover from. If you come close wiping out bass or other species with speedier reproduction, you have a much better chance at recovery than in species like whales or grizzlies. Reasonable people can argue about when a species becomes truly endangered, but whales are part of an ocean ecosystem that is getting hammered, mostly through overfishing. The danger to whales is not primarily hunting but the distortion and threat of collapse that ocean ecosystems face.  If taking individuals won't seriously diminish a species, there's no scientific argument for preventing it. That's where our individual sentiments and moral codes should guide usand that's much trickier.

[Raul]

The situation here is that most people don 't know what 's happening all around them, we only see the most visible examples of what human use ( and abuse ) causes to the various ecosystems either caused directly by us ( like the slaughter of thousands of whales or the decimation on the populations of buffalos and wolves ) or indirectly by human activities like poullution and expansion of human settlements and human development.

Did you know that many tropical birds have drastically reduced their population ?

How did this happen ?

Roads are causing the population reduction of them. Interestingly many of this birds follow warrior ants during their daily quest for food, evreything gets scared crapless when they see warrior ants coming making them easy prey for other hunters like birds. When a road is built ( and it doesn 't need to be a freway ) warrior ants cross the road but birds don 't therefore they are not able to feed on the insects warrior ants scare so birds die of starvation.

You may ask why birds don 't cross the road. Well building a road implies taking down the trees and leveling the terrain which creates a break in the continuity of the tropical forest, it 's not the road what counts it 's those 30-40 ft width in the continuity of the forest for many miles what 's causing the drop in the population, it creates an open space where birds do not fly through, why ? because tropical birds through millions of years of evolution are not used to cross an open space ( like the road ) therefore isolating the birds on both sides of the road, the more roads are built the more isolation they create and even if it sounds stupid ( not crossing the road ) for us you can 't ask a species to adapt in an eyeblink to a drastic change in the environment.

The same has happened to koalas in Australia, but in their case is worse, the get hit by cars or attacked by our domestic dogs and cats.

[Siebert Outdoors]

the simple answer is, no one cares about the little animals that no one notices. Its the beautiful creatures that people care about. Each creature has a specific reason for being here from a whale to a roach. There is no difference they all have a specific impact on their ecosystem. Its only human nature to want to keep the more majestic creatures. Honestly what would you rather have a whale or a tick.

[fourbizz]

 Honestly what would you rather have a whale or a tick.

I would rather have a tick, I don't have anywhere to store a whale. LOL