Japan Announces Withdrawal From International Whaling Commission, To Resume Commercial Whaling (straitstimes.com) 274
Japan is withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and will resume commercial whaling next year, a government spokesman said on Wednesday, in a move expected to spark international criticism. From a report: "We have decided to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission in order to resume commercial whaling in July next year," top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters. "Commercial whaling to be resumed from July next year will be limited to Japan's territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. We will not hunt in the Antarctic waters or in the southern hemisphere," Mr Suga added.
The announcement had been widely expected and comes after Japan failed in a bid earlier this year to convince the IWC to allow it to resume commercial whaling. Tokyo has repeatedly threatened to pull out of the body and has been regularly criticised for catching hundreds of whales a year for "scientific research" despite being a signatory to a moratorium on hunting the animals. Mr Suga said Japan would officially inform the IWC of its decision by the end of the year, which will mean the withdrawal comes into effect by June 30. Leaving the IWC means Japanese whalers will be able to resume the hunting in Japanese coastal waters of minke and other whales currently protected by the commission. But Japan will not be able to continue the so-called scientific research hunts in the Antarctic that has been exceptionally allowed as an IWC member under the Antarctic Treaty.
The announcement had been widely expected and comes after Japan failed in a bid earlier this year to convince the IWC to allow it to resume commercial whaling. Tokyo has repeatedly threatened to pull out of the body and has been regularly criticised for catching hundreds of whales a year for "scientific research" despite being a signatory to a moratorium on hunting the animals. Mr Suga said Japan would officially inform the IWC of its decision by the end of the year, which will mean the withdrawal comes into effect by June 30. Leaving the IWC means Japanese whalers will be able to resume the hunting in Japanese coastal waters of minke and other whales currently protected by the commission. But Japan will not be able to continue the so-called scientific research hunts in the Antarctic that has been exceptionally allowed as an IWC member under the Antarctic Treaty.
Dear Japan (Score:2)
The UK does not hunt whales. Why can't you copy that, too?
Just Japanese Territory (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as it is only in Japanese territory their choice but how long they take to put the whale down should be taken into account, a cruel extended death should be banned and any method should require pretty much instant death for the whale. Not that I would eat whale or promote it's killing but prevention of cruelty to animals laws should apply.
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Unfortunately animals tend not to respect international borders. The UK is just now discovering this with Brexit and fishing rights too. It really depends if the waters in Japanese territories are important to whales, e.g. they use them as spawning grounds.
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I may be anecdotal but animals may, in fact, respect borders if their survival depend on it.
We have a natural park where fishing is forbidden, and not only there are a lot more fish than the areas right next to it but they also easier to approach. In other area, they keep their distance, especially if you carry a harpoon. Yep, they also recognize harpoons and know the approximate range in order to stay out of it.
Re: Just Japanese Territory (Score:2)
International waters aren't Japanese.
Extinction doesn't give a shit about possession.
Whales are no different from any other international traveller, beyond higher intelligence. That doesn't depend a whole lot on your view of whale intelligence. They don't belong to Japan.
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Translation: (Score:2)
"They can do what they want in their own country unless it's something very specific I care about. "
Does that kind of sum up your post?
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To be honest, no one in Japan likes eating whale. They only do whaling to prove that they can.
Re: Just Japanese Territory (Score:3, Funny)
Feed them alcohol, fried foods and tobacco. You know, the way America kills Its whales.
Oh, and supersize it.
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Because the UK does not give money to politicians (Score:5, Interesting)
Whalehunters do give money to Japanese politicians. Lots of money.
Japanese politics is all about money.
If this has a negative impact on the 2020 Olympics, then whaling will be banned just as quickly.
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Japanese politics is all about money.
What a strange thing to say - and American (or any democratic / capitalist) politics isn't about money?!
There's probably no other country in the World who is as well funded by large corporate interests as USA - look up lobbying (bribing).
Re: Because the UK does not give money to politici (Score:2)
And America ranks badly on corruption, pollution, destruction of endangered species, destruction of areas of special scientific interest, destruction of history...
That it's the same in every othet corrupt nation shouldn't be a shock.
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My guess is that whaling in Japan is similar to coal in the US. Both are dying industries that still have enough political clout to get money from the government to prop up their businesses and keep them going long past when they should have died.
Research (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes "research" whales that just happen to end up in the fish markets.
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Well yes, wouldn't want to waste the meat unnecessarily while carrying out the very real research of how many whales we can pointlessly kill before people care.
Re:Whales, Walls, Obsession (Score:4, Interesting)
It is not strange at all. After WWII, occupied West Germany was plundered by the former Allies for a while, but with the start of the Cold War, the focus shifted from revenge to opposing the Soviet Union and the emerging Communist bloc. By the end of the 40s, the anti-Nazi policies were scrapped, the criminal past of the NSDAP members and the Nazi government officials was forgotten and forgiven, they were given prominent roles in the German "recovery", and a lot of money was poured into the German economy in the form of foreign aid.
Nothing like that happened in Japan until after the Korean war. The Japanese were basically left to starve for a whole decade by the US. When the occupation power was petitioned for help (which is their responsibility according to international law), the administration of McArthur suggested that Japan should hunt whale meat for satisfying protein deficiency. This is how the modern whaling came about.
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Behaving like a bull in a china shop has this effect as a result, yes.
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Not fast enough for my taste.
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Two things.
First, it is hard to argue it was a necessity. The GP post upthread is correct to point out the role of the US in jump-starting the whaling industry (the US even outfitted and managed the first whaling fleet of postwar Japan), but the story doesn't end there. Whaling provided protein to Japan in the first two decades post-WWII, while it was too poor to import meat. Consumption peaked out around the late 50s and early 60s, after which it declined sharply to nearly zero today.
https://i.imgur.com/rU [imgur.com]
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Re: Whales, Walls, Obsession (Score:5, Interesting)
Japan hates it. Schools won't touch it, neither will the poor. Oligarchs and politicians do, which is why their behaviour is strange. Mercury poisoning.
Whale meat is massively subsidized but ends up dumped or sold to Norway at a loss.
The subsidies are all that keep the industry profitable. Nobody sane wants the stuff.
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I don’t see the difference (Score:2, Interesting)
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Animals hunted and used everywhere around the world. Species are going extinct all around the world.
Humans aren't. We need some general-purpose Manshonyaggers to thin out their sickly breed.
Re: I don’t see the difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Because a rat isn't intelligent. Some whales have neocortex mass:body mass ratios about 1.5x that of humans.
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Fukushima and fisheries (Score:3)
One day we might get some independent data on the amount of radionuclides in Japanese fisheries considering the amount of radioactive effluents the ongoing Fukushima disaster is putting into their food chain. I wouldn't be surprised if they know all this and opening up options for themselves.
The volcanic region made seafood a rich harvest for Japan and now they have poisoned it. Bio-accumulation of radionuclides in the food chain is real no matter how much Japan suppresses information. It will continue to poison the Pacific until we take the clean-up effort away from TEPCO and make it an international issue that we address with maximum priority to stop it spreading any further.
That would be the honorable thing to do.
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One day we might get some independent data on the amount of radionuclides in Japanese fisheries considering the amount of radioactive effluents the ongoing Fukushima disaster is putting into their food chain.
I suppose it is easy to get them yourself, just buy a bit of Japanese fish and a Geiger counter, or send it to a lab for more precise measurements.
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Until Fukushima Japan had no limits on radioactivity of foods. After Fukushima they quickly introduced some which are similar to those standards set in other countries.
People were critical of the level since (just like you) people can't seem to fathom how a nuclear disaster didn't irradiate the oceans, and they continue to be critical despite the fact that lowing the limit any further would effectively ban Japan from eating any bananas from anywhere in the world.
Yeah that's right, if you worry about radiati
Re:Fukushima and fisheries (Score:5, Insightful)
The highest radiation dose most people receive in a year actually comes from their own bodies. There's a naturally occurring radioactive isotope of potassium, and our nervous system needs potassium to function. Likewise, foods high in potassium can give you an elevated radiation dose. The radiation sensors at our border checkpoints designed to detect terrorists trying to smuggle in a dirty bomb are forever being triggered by cat litter, tiles, and foods high in potassium like bananas, nuts, etc. [slate.com].
After that comes rocks - mainly granite, but also things like beach sand [youtube.com]. They have trace amounts of natural uranium which is radioactive. Having granite countertops in your kitchen substantially increases your annual radiation dose. The radon which can build up in your basement if you live in the mountains comes from rocks. Radon is one of the byproducts of uranium's natural decay chain.
After that is cosmic rays from space. Living at higher altitudes increases your exposure to this radiation source, since there's less atmosphere above you to absorb it. A transcontinental flight exposes you to about as much additional radiation as a medical x-ray. All the people who fled Japan after Fukushima by flying home unwittingly subjected themselves to more radiation during the flight than they would have received from Fukushima if they had just stayed in Japan.
Anyhow, uranium is water soluble. As a result, seawater has a much higher concentration of natural radionuclides [waterencyclopedia.com] than you normally encounter on land. So if you're that paranoid about radiation, you shouldn't swim in the ocean (you shouldn't even go to the beach, where the sand and sun will irradiate you). The increase in radioactivity from pre- to post-Fukushima is tiny compared to natural levels. The reason we know it's coming from Fukushima is not because the water has suddenly become radioactive. It's because the radioactivity is coming from certain isotopes which have short half-lives so have long since disappeared as a natural radiation source. Fukushima was the only recent event which created a bunch of those short-lived isotopes, so we know that if we detect radiation from those isotopes, that they must have come from Fukushima.
Disappointing and difficult to understand. (Score:2)
They subscribe to ancestor worship, Buddhist doctrine. That the movies of The Superstar [scmp.com] became an unlikely hit in Japan, much liked by the older generation shows they have some strong value system not visible to the West.
So, it is particularly disappointing that they don't value whales and they seem to condone exterminating a species. Hope something cha
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Huh? The Japanese are people. I don't know what you think makes them immune from arsehole wasteful industries that bribe politicians to keep their dying business afloat.
Their actual plan (Score:2)
Their actual plan is to get us down to only 2 humpback whales, in the hopes of attracting starships from the future. They can then capture one and harvest the technology.
Re:Their actual plan (Score:5, Funny)
Their actual plan is to get us down to only 2 humpback whales, in the hopes of attracting starships from the future. They can then capture one and harvest the technology.
The part that was cut out of the script was that after finding out what what had happened, Space Whales invaded earth to harvest Japanese people for research purposes.
It's Sad... (Score:2)
Spock isn't going to be happy (Score:2)
Will have to make a return time voyage to stop them.
Arm the Whales? (Score:2)
Has anyone considered working with the whales on how they can defend themselves? Just a thought.
Save the whales! (Score:2)
It's only sensible. (Score:5, Informative)
There are a whole bunch of species of whale that are neither particularly smart nor anywhere near endangered, like the common minke whale [wikipedia.org]. Anyone who isn't a vegetarian has no business pretending there's a moral issue here.
And the general IWC moratorium, now over three decades old, is in blatant defiance of the purpose stated in the convention that established the IWC -- to make the whaling industry orderly, in order to increase whale stocks, so that more whales can be hunted. A general ban on commercial whaling isn't what the Japanese signed up for, and it's ludicrous to claim they should be bound to keep going along with the abuse of a treaty that's been perverted against its explicit text.
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On, balance, maybe better? (Score:2)
Reading through the summary it seems like maybe having Japan hunt whales near Asher they live, may be better than having them hunt whales around Antartica (which is what they were doing).
Antartica still has a long way to go to recover from the whaling days, and if they are hunting locally maybe it will be more sustainable.
Too bad they can't just give up whaling altogether though,
You know this may be a hidden way to kill it (Score:2)
Re:Well, whales go extinct in 2024 (Score:5, Interesting)
Whales shouldnÃ(TM)t be hunted for food at all. They are nearly extinct.
"Whales" comprise around 90 different species, some of which are endangered and some which are quite numerous.
Among the species which are classified by IUCN as Least Concern (i.e. not qualifying for a near threatened, vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered status) are Bowhead Whales, Southern Right Whales, Common Minke Whales, Humpback Whales, Grey Whales, and various dolphins.
The Minke whale, which is currently the most common catch for whalers, is quite abundant, with over 180,000 in the North Atlantic alone.
Re: Well, whales go extinct in 2024 (Score:4, Informative)
Southerm Right Whales turned out to be two distinct species, a few years back. The list has not been updated to reflect that, yet, but the two species have about half the numbers in each.
It makes a huge difference.
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But how long would whales last if every major country returned to commercial whaling?
How long would deer last if we all returned to deer hunting?
The solution is the same - monitoring the populations and setting quotas accordingly.
Outright bans cause problems too - the migratory bird hunting ban here in the US, for example, where enormous flocks of Canadian geese wreak havoc, the populations having exploded (in part due to corn fields and golf courses, and in part due to killing off their other predators).
For whales, some of the whale species are in direct competition with otherwise sustaina
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Quite. You can tell what they are when they fly over and go "honk, eh".
Re: Well, whales go extinct in 2024 (Score:5, Interesting)
Blue Whale numbers haven't risen significantly since whaling stopped and many species are on the Red List.
Most species that aren't are turning out to be multiple species, due to isolation. Right Whales are an example of that. By recategorizing according to genetics, sevwral whale species went from ok to critically endangered.
We still know nothing about the Lone Voice, the lonliest whale on the planet, other than he's the last of his kind.
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Don't let yourselves be burdened by the know-nothing western leftards.
I also say we bring back whaling, let's just give it a try.. My parents whaled on me when I was a kid, and I turned out ok.
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Re: Good for them! (Score:5, Informative)
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In fact the only whale delicacy served is thin, very expensive, slices of kujira no tama, or testicle. There is no dietary reason why they would want to resume large scale whaling.
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Re: Good for them! (Score:5, Informative)
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There is no demand. This is a simple fact. Nobody in Japan likes whale meat, even the whalers prefer other meats.
https://i.imgur.com/rUybGN4.pn... [imgur.com]
Re: Good for them! (Score:2)
You're speaking nonsense. There's enough demand that Japan has, in the recent past, resorted to importing whale meat from Iceland.
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No, get real, if a shoe company or box company started losing money permanently do you think they'd stay open for giggles
If the shoes or boxes are in fact generating nationalist giggles, then yes.
That would remain true if their gross sales were actually low. If you put a camera in people's faces, do they pretend to like it? Then yes, easy call. They would do it.
Re: Good for them! (Score:3, Insightful)
Fosdil fuels lose so much, they need a 23 trillion dollar subsidy every year. Don't see them closing.
No, government egos are quite capable of keeping the undead animated. The whaling industry is such a zombie.
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Re: Good for them! (Score:2)
Horseshit. The US has enough oil reserves to be completely independent if they so choose. "No blood for oil" is a slogan dreamed up by retards.
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You are the only retard here. Oil is a commodity sold on a global market. If oil prices rise, they rise everywhere. The only way to go completely independent would be to declare oil a strategic resource and ban all imports and exports of it. That would kill your economy overnight.
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You're somewhat ignorant of US foreign policy and its motivation.
Also, reserves is not the same thing as affordable oil.
The US has a long-standing policy of installing (or trying to) friendly terrorist regimes where cheap, easy to extract oil is available.
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, most of the small Gulf "countries" which only have oil wells and US bases, etc.
Re: Good for them! (Score:2)
You are the only retard here. Oil is a commodity sold on a global market. If oil prices rise, they rise everywhere.
Hurr durr, thanks Einstein! And having a fuckload of oil they could sell for way more money would be so horrible for the US economy!
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Except it is easy to turn up the marketing so everyone would want it.
Being the amount of meat you can get from one whale, it makes them a rather profitable target for hunting. The profit from a caught whale is worth upgrading a normal fishing ship to a whaling ship.
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Just because there isn't much of a market for the meat, doesn't mean the whale has no economic value. Hell, perfumers pay top dollar for sperm whale vomit that washes up on shore. The market is a strange place.
On a separate note, I think announce that Japanese whaling ship numbers have recovered enough that we are restarting our industry of pirating whalers. Each whaling ship harvested has enormous economic benefit, and the industry as a whole can employ many peg legged captains and scurvy dogs.
Re: Good for them! (Score:2)
No, they don't make money. Neither side does. Whalers are given money, they don't make it, and protestors lose money.
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Horse steak is pretty good and you can put pretty much anything in sausage. There's still a big, not very animal friendly, horse meat industry in Europe and Argentine.
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I live in Spain, I can think of at least four shops within 100 yards that only sell horse meat.
(I live next door to a big food market)
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The problem is in the US we mostly raise Horses as Pets, some farmers use them for utility purposes, such as ranching, but that can be replaced with ATV, however they keep Horses for mostly personal reasons, So eating them just seems wrong.
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This will make America look great by comparison, therefore conspiracy.
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Well it isn't the Republicans Fault, there is a global trend towards nationalism, and regressing back into the old traditional ways, even if we don't know what they are, or why they were followed to begin with.
There are a lot of stresses happening to world society today, many of them are bigger then any one country and these problems are not limited to particular borders. These complex problems are way too abstract for average citizen. So our primal urge of when there is a problem that we cannot confront, H
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However the problem isn't globalism. Because you are even explaining how all these countries are failing their manufacturing workers, by playing the "Race to the bottom" game. There has been growth in US manufacturing, mainly due to investments in technology. The US let its manufacturing infrastructure slide, the US has been and still is good at making BIG Items. Cars, Trucks, Industrial equipment. Asia once rebuilt after WWII, had took on making small things. The US had no problem with this, because smal
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However the problem isn't globalism. Because you are even explaining how all these countries are failing their manufacturing workers, by playing the "Race to the bottom" game.
That's pretty cool. Somehow you've gotten your mental gymnastics to the point where you can cite a problem that is clearly facilitated by globalism, but somehow not attribute it to globalism.
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Well it isn't the Republicans Fault
In a way, it is.
- The financial crisis in 2008 was definitely made possible by deregulation of Wallstreet and the push for laissez faire in general. The ripple effect it had is still felt in countries where nationalism is on the rise. Specifically, it rallied people around the idea of national austerity in economically hard times which led to more income inequality (with most of those responsible going unpunished or even largely unimpacted). So there is also plenty of blame to go around for those (rightwing
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Because there really isn't a way to quickly kill such a large animal.
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Because in the past whale hunting had nothing to do with the meat. And it was disgusting.
Ambergris is a substance in the whale's intestine which was widely used for perfumes. Many whalers would only worry about harvesting this stuff and throw the rest of the whale back in the ocean.
In 2015 a whole whale's estimated value was about $25,000.
According to Wikipedia... "A 1.1-kilogram (2.4 lb) lump of ambergris, found on a beach at Anglesey, Wales, was sold to a French buyer for £11,000 [$14,000] at an auc
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Not true. Whale oil was highly prized in the 19th century, and well into 20th, and had many applications. (as a side note, whale oil based additives used to be very important in vehicle transmissions)
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I'm talking recent past. Hence the 2015 info.
Re:Not sure the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the difference between hunting whales and all the other animals we eat (besides tastiness level but that's opinion based)?
Whales are the only animal they eat that can't be farmed. Hunting and gathering is sustainable only for small human populations, which is why a large percentage of the fish we eat are being farmed today, over the dead bodies of environmental romantics.
The whale population has revived since the nineteenth century age of whaling, but resuming hunts would make whales as threatened as bison were until we started farming them.
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Whales are the only animal they eat that can't be farmed
What about tuna.
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Tuna is a fish. All of the animals we routinely eat are now farmed, and a large percentage of the fish. Farming of tuna is a hard problem because it’s a wide-ranging top predator species, but the Japanese are working on a tuna farming project, because this fish is highly valued in Japanese cuisine.
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What about it? For canned tuna it's mostly wild. In Japan for sashimi and other prepared meals Bluefin is ranched tuna.
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Why eat someone like this when a million sheep are slaughtered all the time, and are in no risk of vanishing?
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The issue is not just age, but whales being large-brained cetaceans. We don't really know much about their state of consciousness.
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>"What is the difference between hunting whales and all the other animals we eat"
Whales are a high-order mammal with great intelligence (like dolphins and apes). We evolved [humans] tend to place a increasingly high stigma on killing and eating animals as they get closer to us on the scale of intelligence.
Plus many whales are endangered or struggling species.
Plus they have very long lifespans with low birth rates.
Plus they can't be farmed.
Plus the hunting methods of killing them tends to be incredibly c
its on (Score:2)
the Japanese people need to stand up and be counted...
is this acceptable for the government of japan to deplete stocks and allow China to take the moral high ground ?
Re: its on (Score:2)
Re: Mixed feelings (Score:2)
Whales have territories, no different from humans, only whales can't move due to food and temperature constraints.
But it does (Score:2)
His campaign to diminish experts and abuse the environment have been a source of inspiration for lunatics the world over.