Outrage over Japan's plan to slaughter humpback whales

There is no good reason for you to assume that Spendi knows anything about the government of OZ. Considerations such as knowledge of the situation and the players are matters to which Spendi remains supremely indifferent--after all, being contrarian never obliges one to know what the hell they're talking about.

spendius

To give you some idea of how Australians feel about whales: This sort of report (link below) is a constant feature of our news. People get very emotional about these fantastic creatures.

Beached whales saved in Australia



Volunteers have helped to save scores of false killer whales that were stranded in western Australia after they beached near Busselton.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4602429.stm

BTW, I didn't say that, folks. That statement was included in a media report I posted. It seems, however, that Australia is leading the wheeling & dealing to get the vote to go one way at the IWC, while Japan is wheeling & dealing to get the vote to go the other way.... A great state of affairs!

Whale-related news items are coming thick & fast in the Oz media as the IWC meeting is about to begin at St Kitts. Here's the latest. A hot dog made from minke whale flesh? Oh come on! You've got to be kidding!:

Like some whale with that?
Tokyo
June 17, 2006/the AGE

To woo young customers more fond of burgers than traditional whale cuisine, a Japanese restaurant has come up with a new taste sensation: the fried whaleburger.

The sandwich, which features fried whale meat nestled in a bun with salad greens and lashings of mayonnaise and ketchup-based sauce, is the creation of a small whale restaurant in the town of Wada, about 100km south-east of Tokyo.

"Young people think whale and bread really go together well, so the burgers are quite popular," said restaurant owner Akiji Ichihara.

For the whaleburger and a whale cutlet sandwich, both of which sell for 300 yen ($A3.50), he uses the meat of Baird's Beaked whales taken by Wada-based ships.

The third sandwich option, a whale hot dog priced at 350 yen ($A4.10), is made from minke whale meat taken by the "scientific whaling" program run by the Japanese government. .... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/want-whale-with-that/2006/06/16/1149964736967.html

fm-

I only asked the question of Ms Olga.

I don't know why you have become so exercised about it. I didn't infer anything. But-



is a question I can't see Ms Olga answering "Yes" to. Nor many others either. If an economic reason has validity equal to a moral reason you have conceded the case of those who want to hunt whales. Or those who are in favour of offing the elderly.

source and full report: Pro-Whaling Nations Lose Commission Vote

Thanks for the good news, Walter ! ! !

Whaling summit setback for Japan
Japan has unexpectedly lost two key votes at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the Caribbean island of St Kitts.
The pro-whaling nation wanted to end work on conservation of sea mammals and introduce secret ballots.

Correspondents say for the moment at least the anti-whaling bloc appears to have retained the balance of power.

Japan says it will consider leaving the IWC if it does not move back towards a resumption of commercial whaling.

Japan has spent years lobbying developing nations to join the IWC and wrest power from the majority anti-whaling bloc. Environmental groups accuse these countries of voting with Japan in return for aid, a charge which the Japanese deny.

Conservation groups have expressed cautious relief.


Allowing sustainable use of abundant species while protecting the depleted... we don't see the problem with that
Joji Morishita
Japanese spokesman


The BBC's Richard Black in St Kitts says they believed a Japanese win on the conservation motion would have had serious consequences for many species of small cetaceans.

Not all of Japan's traditional allies have turned up here and a couple voted unexpectedly with the pro-conservation nations, he says.

However, other votes lie ahead during the five-day meeting and other countries expected to side with Japan may yet turn up, our correspondent says.

'Arrogant'

The basic argument is the same as it has been for years.

The self-styled pro-conservation countries led by Australia, New Zealand and the UK believe whales are intrinsically special animals and should never be killed.





In the opposition corner is a bloc led by Japan, which sees things differently.
Japan's deputy commissioner to the IWC, Joji Morishita, says the organisation has become too concerned with conservation.

Speaking on BBC Five Live Breakfast he said many Japanese people felt the IWC was "arrogant" and that whales could be used on a sustainable basis.

This meant "science and probably international law" were on the side of the Japanese, he said.

"Many of the Japanese citizens thinks that Westerners, [the] outside world, is imposing their own value code on Japan on an emotional basis, and naturally they think they're bullies or... arrogant."

He added: "Allowing sustainable use of abundant species while protecting the depleted... we don't see the problem with that. It's exactly the same as conservation and management of any other wildlife or fishery resources."

But if the argument is familiar, the balance of power this year looks very different.

Changes possible

Four countries have just joined, of which three look set to support Japan giving it a majority on paper.

That could mean a number of important changes to the IWC.

Japan has hinted it may move towards overturning the 20-year moratorium on commercial whaling, although a vote for resumption of commercial hunting at this meeting itself is highly unlikely.

To try to erode Japan's support, environmental groups have been campaigning in some of the small developing nations which traditionally support Japan.

A survey commissioned by WWF suggested there was a majority opinion against whaling in all 10 of the Caribbean and Pacific states in which they polled.

WWF is urging delegates from those nations to cast their votes accordingly.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5085730.stm

Like beef cattle, rabbit warrens or even rats if they became endangered and somebody could draw attention to themselves by campaigning to save the last mating pairs. Do they pair?



I can't speak for upside-downers but it is a fundamental principle of UK intellectual thinking to never say never.

What if whales were really indulged and,having no natural predators, started blocking up the shipping lanes or beaching themselves in a putrifying mass of blubber on all the most scenic beaches where large scale investment in hotels with a sea view had taken place?

No. Never say never. The UK can't have said anything so daft as whales should never be killed. It would depend on how much of a nuisance they were surely.

Norway Hunts Minke whale.

The story of this whale's name illustrates its blighted history. Minke was an 18th-century Norwegian whaler, infamous for regularly breaking the rules concerning the sizes (and therefore species) of whales that he was permitted at that time to hunt. Soon all the small whales became known as "Minke's whales". Eventually, it was formally adopted as the name for this small species.

In fact, because they are such a small whale, the whaling industry generally ignored the minkes until quite recently. As the larger whales became more scarce (and gained protected status), so minke whales became more economically attractive. In the North Atlantic, from the 1920s, whaling for this species has been conducted along the coast of Norway. This expanded, just before World War Two, to Spritsbergen, Shetland and the Faroe Islands and, more recently, the Barents Sea and Iceland. When whale populations dwindled in the late 1940s, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established to manage whale stocks. The IWC announced how many whales could be taken in any year, however, populations continued to decline. In 1985/6 a worldwide moratorium on whaling was put in place, banning all whaling. Norway, however, "took out a reservation", meaning that they could continue by IWC rules to legally hunt North Atlantic minke whales and, in 1993 and 1994, they killed several hundred. This has caused great dismay in other countries, including the U.K., who have officially objected to this hunt. In UK waters it is illegal to intentionally kill, injure, capture or harass any species of whale or dolphin. However, there is little in international law that can be done about hunting, except control of exports which is covered by CITES (the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species). This is important because the main consumers of whale meat are still the Japanese and, if Norway could legally export whale meat to Japan, this might further promote whaling. In 1993 a shipment of whale meat, labelled as "shrimp", was discovered at Oslo airport in Norway, on route to Asia.

Like other cetaceans, minke whales are also threatened by degradation of their habitat. This may be caused by depletion of their prey, perhaps resulting from over-fishing, and pollution and global climatic changes. Climatic change could, for example, affect ocean currents and therefore the locality and abundance of the whales' prey. An unknown number of minke whales also become entangled in fishing nets each year. The significance of these threats is only poorly known.

Minke whales are hunted using an explosive harpoon. These replaced the "cold" (non explosive) harpoons because they killed the animals more quickly. However, the whales may still take a considerable length of time to die and there is widespread agreement, especially when it is compared to methods used to kill farm animals, that whaling is inhumane.

Is the minke whale population of the North Atlantic large enough to support a limited hunt?

Some of the fiercest battles at the IWC have been fought in recent years about the size of this population. Norway bases it's own quota on population estimates made by Norwegian scientists and these have been questioned. At what population size a whale population can actually be "sustainably harvested", if at all, is also a point of debate, especially noting the present lack of understanding of other threats to these animals. Another consideration is whether or not whaling out on the high seas can actually be properly controlled.

spendispeak
Where do you get this?? I answered your question which was whether the PROTECTION OF WHALES was based upon moral or economic reasons. My answer FOR WHALE PROTECTION was why did it matter what the reasons were. How you get from there to "offing the elderly" only makes a modicum of sense in the mind that we know as spendis.


Im afraid that , if we got into your mind, there would be an abundance of chiropterans in residence .

Very good news to wake up to this morning!
Phew!

If you're interested, here's how the ABC (Australia's national broadcaster) is reporting the latest development at St Kitts. (Video & audion reports included in the link below):

Japan loses second vote at whaling meeting:

....... It is the second time Japan has lost a vote at today's IWC meeting, but there are still a number of key votes to go.

"So far we have managed to dodge the harpoon," Joth Singh said, director of wildlife and habitat protection for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), at the IWC's June 16-20 meeting in the Caribbean island of St Kitts and Nevis.

Japan earlier lost a vote which proposed the discussion of cetaceans, which includes the management of dolphins, porpoises and small whales, be removed from the IWC agenda. .....


..... Environmental group Greenpeace says the votes were "a victory for the whales, but no cause for complacency".

"We cannot continue year after year to see the fate of the whales hang by a thread," Greenpeace International spokesman Mike Townsley said.

Japan has abided by the moratorium on commercial whaling but uses a loophole that allows for scientific whaling.


...... 'Waste of time'

Japan's alternate commissioner Joji Morishita says he is not surprised at how the votes had gone but is disappointed the IWC decided to maintain a fractious status quo.

"These whole meetings are a waste of time," he said.

The United States, regarded by both sides as a moderating voice, warned that other votes in the IWC meeting could still go Japan's way, and lamented the acrimonious divide between pro- and anti-whaling countries had not been resolved.

"The bottom line is we got to save whales and we're not saving whales right now," Bill Hogarth, director of the US National Marine Fisheries Service, told Reuters, referring to the whales caught under science programs. .....

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1665338.htm

fm wrote-



I think my question asked Ms Olga to say whether she "thought" the Australian Government's motive was moral or economic; i.e. that they made money from lots of whales.I couldn't imagine them being interested in animal suffering after I saw a film of how they shipped live cattle into Asia. Or do those cattle not come into this moral argument. Are they less posh than whales?

Didn't you say that it made no difference. That both reasons were equally valid. If you didn't I apologise.

If both are equally valid then the Japanese economic case is as valid as the Australian economic case and thus the Japanese economic case is also as valid as an Australian moral case.

And aspects of this appear in every discussion on euthanasia which explains my "offing the elderly" phrase.

According to you spendi.

If peace is desired because it is
1 morally justifiable

2Economically desirable


Then, by your way of thinking, war can can be similarly justified.



msolga-How many more individual issues are theyvoting on,? I hope that these issues where Japan is being ouvoted are not just "the minor counts"

Spendius. Do you want to know the reason why nations like Japan must be kept in check? Because they would strip the oceans bare. And then we would all suffer.

Japan to table whaling 'roadmap'
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, St Kitts



Japan is to table its proposal for a move towards a return to commercial whaling on day two of the International Whaling Commission annual meeting.
It says future whaling would be sustainable, with safeguards including independent observers and set quotas.

On the first day of the meeting in St Kitts, Japan lost two key votes, one which would have ended IWC work on conserving dolphins and porpoises.

But new arrivals could tip the balance of power.

At the end of the first day, delegates from Togo and Cameroon arrived and paid their subscriptions, entitling them to vote.

As Japan lost the two first-day motions narrowly - one by two votes, the other by three - it may expect to fare better if it puts its proposals to a vote on day two.


To 'manage' means to allow the utilisation of abundant species, under international control, under strict control, while protecting depleted and endangered species
Joji Morishita
Japan's deputy whaling commissioner


Japan has said it will consider leaving the IWC if it does not move back towards an eventual resumption of commercial whaling, a process which Japan terms "normalisation".

"This organisation was established in order to manage whaling and whale species," said Japan's deputy whaling commissioner, Joji Morishita.

"To 'manage' means to allow the utilisation of abundant species, under international control, under strict control, while protecting depleted and endangered species."

'No going back'

The proposal can be seen as a "roadmap" towards a return to regulated commercial whaling.

Japan maintains it is not a return to the rapacious practices of the early 20th Century, when tens of thousands of whales were hunted each year and stocks of some, notably the blue whale, plummeted towards extinction.

"Then whales were hunted for oil, but no-one hunts for oil now," said Mr Morishita.

Hunting for meat, Japan says, would mean catching far fewer whales.

Safeguards envisaged by Japan would include:

sustainable quotas
monitoring and inspection by enforcement officials
a DNA registry or catch certification system
penalties for violations
The normalisation document is unlikely to appease the concerns of environmental groups which see it leading to an expansion of hunting.

Stalls on the road

Discussions on an issue closely allied to normalisation, the Revised Management Scheme (RMS), have been going on for 14 years without conclusion.





The RMS discussions would have seen IWC members agree on a roadmap much the same as the one Japan is now proposing; and the suspension of talks in March is a principal reason for Japan now tabling its normalisation ideas.

But if anti-whaling nations could not find common ground with Japan in 14 years of talks, they are unlikely to find any now.

To get around that obstacle, Japan is proposing to host separate talks later this year with countries which see potential in the idea.

There is a view in some conservation-minded countries that a small amount of regulated commercial hunting would be preferable to the current situation, which sees Japan and Iceland whaling for what they call "scientific purposes" as permitted under IWC rules, and Norway ignoring the moratorium having lodged a legal objection at its inception.

This amounts to a total catch of about 2,000 whales per year, under what is supposed to be a global ban.

[email protected]



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/5089826.stm

Wilso wrote-



I dealt with that point the other day. They would not strip the ocean bare at all because there would come a point when the cost of finding whales would be more than the price they could get for them. It is a matter of simple economics. The habitat of the whales is not threatened as it is for some other species such as bears in N America or buffalo.Obviously the number of whales is a key factor in the argument. You seem to be placing whales into a similar category as the Hindu places the cow.

I don't think you have been respectful enough with the posts in this thread before blurting out your facile interruption.

I think "suffer" is much too strong a word to use there. Are you suggesting that not being able to see whales blowing off is suffering?

spendius

You're quite right about the Australian government's attitude to the (shameful) live sheep trade being quite different to it's attitude toward whale conservation. I'm in no position to explain the reasons for the the government's differing attitudes on the 2 issues. Let's put it this way - they are not exactly famous for their compassion toward animals. Nor humans, for that matter! But in this particular case I'm grateful they've they've taken the attitude they have. (Never thought I'd see myself agreeing with this government on anything! :wink: ) But I don't want to divert the focus this thread to contemplating the Australian government's motives on anything! (That would be a can of worms, trust me!)

For your information here's an A2K thread about sheep trade concerns from not so long ago:

The shameful Australian practice of live sheep trade:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=69082&highlight=

The latest update from the ABC:

Last Update: Sunday, June 18, 2006. 8:10am (AEST)

Campbell attacks Japan over 'horrendous' whale hunts
Australia's Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell has branded Japan's whale hunts as "inhumane" and "disgusting" as he unveiled a new report on whale slaughter.

Senator Campbell ignited a new row with Japan on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting in the Carribbean state of St Kitts and Nevis.

He tore the wraps off a report compiled by the pressure group, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), presented it to an IWC committee and claimed it showed Japan's argument that it conducts whale hunts humanely is "absolutely false".

"This is what's done in the name of science," Senator Campbell said, referring to Japan's scientific whale hunts, which are permitted by the IWC, but which are opposed to conservationists who support a two-decades-old moratorium on commercial whale hunting.

"This is how Japan in the name of science collects whale meat, takes it back to Japan, sticks it in warehouses, tries to get schoolchildren to eat it, gets old people to eat it now, and we also know from some evidence that they feed it to dogs.

"It is a horrendous thing ... it is absolutely abysmal, it is wrong and it has to stop."

Senator Campbell says the report, drawn from publicly available video footage of Japanese whale hunts, showed the way whales were killed was "absolutely inhumane and quite disgusting".

Greenpeace is also calling for the Australian Government to do more to protect whales and stop Japan's whaling program.

Mr Kennedy says while the Federal Government is working hard at the conference, it needs to do more to stop Japan's whaling activities.

"We do want the Australian Government to look at other options, including new legal avenues outside the International Whaling Commission to take them to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which could stop the scientific whaling program, this abuse of the whole idea of the science clause of the International Whaling Commission." he said. .. <cont>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1665561.htm

spendi

Its obvious that your not a market economist

Using your logic gasoline should not be a problem either since the cost of finding it would make it not worth seeking.And dont give me crap about oil being non renewable. Your "Creationist" pals believe that oil is being produced abiologically as we speak.


Whales are easily located by satellite and , like caviar sturgeon, when the commodity decreases, the price skyrockets, thus assuring the sturgeons and the whales demise. So we have to exert some economic benefit greater than the value of whale avordupois To save them. Also, whales are panmictic and exchange genetic material among the various populations of a species. When they breed, they need a critical mass of individuals to assure viability of the herd. So, its probable that the "right" whale and the Fundy population of Humpbacks are already going to be extinct despite cessation of whaling.