Outrage over Japan's plan to slaughter humpback whales

seems that theyre willing to intervene from the likes of those that you respect. We all have our heros.

i wonder when a deer took a potshot at cj last - perhaps they are kicking sand into his face ?

wrestling with some crcodiles - not those docile alligators - that might be considered a sport .
hbg

Maybe if you're the crocodile harasser. Oh wait, he's dead.

farmer

I don't think cjhsa "successfully conflated killing whales with all hunting", at all .... any more that the Japanese have convinced anyone that they are conducting 'scientific research when they slaughter whales for profit.
He simply succeeded in gaining responses to some rude, insensitive & inane comments from others here.

Some time ago I actually did make a formal complaint after a series of particularly offensive & irrelevant posts, clearly aimed at derailing the thread. I won't go into the details now, but some offending posts were removed, things returned to "normal" for a time, until the next lot of offensive & irrelevant posts, etc ...and now, here we are again!

I would be very disappointed (& angry) if the thread was locked, too, farmer. But, really, you flatter me when you speak of what I can "allow" & not allow. I have absolutely no desire to be reporting anyone to the moderators, time & time again.

OK, so once again I'll remind cjhsa that this is a thread about whale conservation. I'd ask that he respect the subject of the thread & stick to topic. It is not a thread about guns or hunting - that can be discussed elsewhere on A2K. I'd also ask that he remain civil in his comments toward other participants of the thread, even when he disagrees with their point of view & argues from another persective.

Is that too much to ask?

Can we get back on topic now, please?

hbg - promise to stay on topic

Conservation and hunting are the same thing. Trying to separate them with violence and misguided emotionalism is silly.

You think so?

I'm certain you could get a very lively discussion going if you posted that statement as a thread topic, cjhsa.
Plus a chance to fully explain your point of view.

It's OK, hamburger.
These things happen. :wink:

Flick through any "hunting" magazine and you will readily see this is not so.

Really? Anybody with a clue about conservation knows that. For the past 100 years hunters have provided all the publicly gathered funds for conservation in the U.S. And it works. Our game animal population is thriving. So are the carnivores. There really isn't much to discuss. The best wildlife management tool we have is hunting/fishing/trapping. Admininstered properly, it is amazingly effective.

Tomorrow is the firearms deer season opener here in Michigan. 700,000 people will be out in the woods chasing 1.6M deer and injecting almost $1B into our economy.... About 400,000 deer will be killed in the next two weeks. Next year, there will be about 1.7M to chase.

In the last 100 years since commercial hunting was ended, whitetail, blacktail, mule, elk, moose, wild turkey, etc., etc., etc. have come back with a vengence. All because of hunter dollars. We don't take it lightly. You may make spectacles of certain edangered species, but often they are endangered because of their own inability to adapt. California Condors come to mind. Coyotes on the other hand, seem to do just fine wherever they go.

And how many two-legged? I wouldn't go out there.

I read that farmers in the US have been known to paint "COW" in big letters on the sides of their beasts because they were losing too many to the conservationists.

You much watch a lot of CNN and BBC. Liberal claptrap. Of course, there are those like you who go do this **** to discredit hunters, or because you just don't like your neighbors.

What about starting that thread, cjhsa?

You certainly seem to want to discuss this issue in depth.

This thread is about whales.

Sigh.

The Japanese whaling, as you know, has not been for fun nor for "sports", but was for getting foods. If some of you happen to think otherwise, the persons should have, I must say, a prejudice against Japanese people. Traditionally Japense people had no habit of sheep farming, and hardly took cows or oxen as foods, but mainly depended on fish or soy beans for their protein intake. Whales were thought to be a food resource from the sea.

There is a classical work of studies of whales and whaling written by a Japanese scholar in 1808, which is entitled "Gei-shi-kou (a Manuscript on the History of Whale and Whaling)." The work is a very serious writing on whales and whaling.

http://record.museum.kyushu-u.ac.jp/kujira/geisiko/geisiko.html
(manuscripts in Japanese)

examples of figures:



http://record.museum.kyushu-u.ac.jp/kujira/geisiko/2/geisiko2.html

Unfortunately, a few people will be killed by stray bullets or by other gun-related accident, however, nowhere near the number that will be killed or maimed driving to and from deer camp on our beloved freeway system.

Satt- I think we understand that the JApanese have interjected "research" for "market hunting". Establishing quotas that dont rely on clearly endangered species , like humpbacks or right whales or pacific sperms would make it leass of a travesty, but, Since the actual research on viability of whale populations (including minkes) is mostly done by the nations that DONT hunt for these creatures, makes me suspect the honesty of the Japanese POV.

PS, Id love to have a thread in which to defend hunting of game in the US (or the world) for that matter. Just not here cj, as msolga said, this is whales , whales , and more whales.

Ruling restores sonar ban off coast

Navy is told to devise new safeguards for marine mammals for its next training missions.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 14, 2007
A federal appeals court Tuesday restored a ban on the U.S. Navy's use of submarine-hunting sonar in upcoming training missions off Southern California until it adopts better safeguards for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.

The order allows the Navy to continue its current exercises, but will force the Pentagon to devise ways to ensure that marine mammals are not harassed or injured by powerful sonic blasts during a series of training missions slated to begin in January.

Those precautions, such as reducing sonar power at night, when whales are not easily spotted, will have to be approved by the same federal court in Los Angeles that ordered the initial sonar ban in August.

Tuesday's decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals came in a case that had pitted the interests of unencumbered military training against environmental protection.

At issue is mid-frequency, active sonar, a technology developed to hunt for Soviet submarines in the deep ocean. The Navy has adopted the technique in coastal waters to train sailors for a potential threat posed by quiet, diesel-electric submarines operated by North Korea, Iran or other nations.

U.S. and NATO warships using mid-frequency sonar near land have, at times, left behind clusters of panicked and sometimes fatally injured whales and dolphins in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and in the Mediterranean Sea.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper had issued a temporary injunction forbidding the Navy from training with sonar off Southern California until she could hear the merits of a case brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups.

The Navy appealed her decision and won a reprieve from the 9th Circuit Court. Tuesday's ruling restored the original court decision, essentially forcing the world's most powerful navy either to negotiate with environmental attorneys or unilaterally propose measures that will satisfy the district court.

In its five-page ruling, the three judges said that the environmental groups had shown a "strong likelihood" of winning their lawsuit and that the Navy had used many of the additional safeguards those groups have been pushing.

At the same time, the panel said Cooper did not explain why "a broad, absolute injunction . . . for two years was necessary to avoid irreparable harm to the environment."

The panel ordered the judge to narrow the injunction to allow the Navy to increase its safeguards and proceed with training exercises that military officials say are needed to certify sailors as battle-ready.

Both the Navy and environmental attorneys claimed some measure of victory in the ruling.

"We are encouraged that the appeals court found the original injunction was too broad and ordered the district court to tailor mitigation conditions under which the Navy may conduct its training," Navy spokesman Capt. Scott Gureck said in a statement. He declined to reveal the Navy's next move, saying: "We are considering our options."

Attorney Richard Kendall, representing environmental groups, said his clients will offer to meet with the Navy immediately to fashion timely remedies that will not disrupt the Navy's training schedule.

"Our position has been the same all along: We are not opposed to training, but we are opposed to training without precautions that will prevent unnecessary harm to whales and other marine mammals," Kendall said. "We're pleased that the appeals court has upheld our position."

The California Coastal Commission, which also sought additional safeguards that were rejected by the Navy, has joined the lawsuit.

The commission has some say in Navy activities because of a federal law that empowers states to protect their coastal resources.

The Navy says it already uses 29 protective measures during the exercises, including placing personnel on ships to look for marine mammals and turning off sonar when dolphins or whales come within about 1,000 yards of sonar-emitting ships.

The Coastal Commission and other groups want to double the radius of that "safety zone" and require the Navy to reduce the intensity of sonar at night and during rough sea conditions, when whales and dolphins cannot be spotted.

The commission and environmentalists are pushing the Navy to avoid training in the gray whale migration route, typically within a dozen miles of the coast, and to avoid the Channel Islands, shallow banks and seamounts, where marine mammals tend to congregate.

"The Navy is faced with a brick wall," said Joel Reynolds, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It has no alternative but to increase the level of protections for marine life."

In a similar lawsuit brought by environmentalists, the Navy agreed last year to expand its buffer zone, and take other steps during multinational "Rim of the Pacific" exercises held off Hawaii in July 2006.

The Navy appeared to be eager to take the issue to the Supreme Court and establish a precedent that would prevent further legal action. But the decision Tuesday made it unlikely that the nation's highest court would take up the matter because the Navy has alternatives available through the lower court.

Why doesn't it surprise me that eco and animal rights terrorists want to disable the defensive capabilities of our Navy and her ships? Hmm? This is a threat to the sovereignity of the United States. So clearly this issue is more than just about whales, despite what the author would like to think.