Whales, or whats left of them.

Damn!

It has been wonderful seeing the whales returning.

Where I live - in the western part of the state, in the Great Australian Bight - there is a Southern Right Whale breeding ground. The mummies come up from the Antarctic to have their babies, and spend a few months hugging the shore, playing with and fondling their young, until the babies are big and tough enough to go back south. Watching the social life of these huge creatures is a joy - and watching them watching you back - although they have to sit on their tails to do so - is a very sobering thing.

Whales have come back to our whole coastline - and not just Southern Rights - hordes of people drive down to Victor Harbour - an eastern coast town, once famous for its whaling, to see the ever increasing numbers of whales down there. It is common for the ferry serving Kangaroo Island - a large island community - to stop so people can see whales - or to avoid hitting or frightening them - (strict rules for boats about how close they can go).

The same thing is happening on Australia's east coast.

It is a tragedy if this renaissance stops.

Sydney Harbour has the occasional whale!

What the hell does Japan think will come of this continuation of whaling? They;ll just be all gone sooner. Grrrr.....

I'll second that grrrrrr.....

It is not just Japan - Iceland wants to whale, too, as I imagine must other countries if the numbers are going to go against the ban countries.

Is there a link, Dys, which explains more about what the pro-whaling countries want? Do they want "open slather", or some kind of quota system?

The nursery area in South Australia/Western Australia is going to be a marine national park, and actions like this from other countries may help.

Much as I want to see whales protected, it is sometimes a little irritating to see how the "sexy" mega fauna cause a great outcry, while less engaging species are wiped out every day, with little or no outcry about their passing...

Different cultures are weird, while an American might view whaling as barbaric many outside America view capital punishment, for example, as barbaric.

Personally I'd rather have no whales than to see some acts that are acceptable in American eyes.

PS I do not eat whale or any sea food.

Japanese whaling is by no means big business. The issue of whaling should be discussed based on scientific facts, rather than emotions. Japan follows international conventions on whaling, thus to Japanese things like Clinton banning Japan from access to fishing rights in US waters and threatening economic sanctions is seen as further proof of America's penchant for telling others what to do.
Japan, Norway, and other pro-whaling countries argue that whale stocks are strong enough in many regions to handle limited hunts. Japanese officials say the growing whale population is harming fishing.
Some whale species are depleted but some are quite abundant. It would be difficult to argue that when some species of fish becomes highly depleted by over-fishing, any other country could introduce a policy banning fishing any fish species regardless of different population statuses.

Note that when intense whaling happened in the Antarctic in the 20th century it was for oil production, which is a quite different situation from today and quite unlikely to happen again.

By the way, selling the meat from whales caught for research as Japan does is mandatory according to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. I heard this from a Japanese friend and I was so surprised I tracked it down online. . .

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE REGULATION OF WHALING, 1946

Here's the Japan Whaling Association's website.

Craven - I understand your point - but I am sure capital punishment in the USA and other barbaric western practices can be wiped out without the death of a single whale! LOL

Monger - the day I believe that the Japanese are really "researching" when they kill whales, is the day hell freezes over.

The issue is, as you and Craven have pointed out, that some countries regard whales as sacrosanct, and some do not.

If the countries that want whaling say they are doing it to counterbalance overfishing by whales, then that may make some sense in the light of human overfishing of the same resources - that is, while we kill so many fish, the whales cannot be allowed to take their bit too. I am not aware of whales endangering fish stocks in the absence of human overfishing.

I would imagine that, if competition for fish is a real reason for whaling (and I understand the importance of fishing for some countries) then the baleen whales, such as the Southern Right, the sperm etc will not be hunted - given that they subsist on plankton?

Of course, another objection to whaling is the horror of the kinds of deaths to which large, apparently highly intelligent, social and presumably sensorily sophisticated mammals are subjected - explosive harpoon heads have lessened the time frame of the horror, I suppose, but the whole methodology is horrific to those of us who believe we should limit the suffering of animals we choose to sacrifice.

In essence, I recognize that the anti-whaling argument, IF any new agreement contains safeguards against over-hunting, is emotional - ie it rests on the feeling that these creatures are too much like us, and too precious, to kill.

I can well imagine how silly that may seem to a culture whose traditions contain a history of eating whale flesh.

I think there IS an argument for the hunting of whales by traditional hunters - just as Aboriginal people here have the right to hunt otherwise totally protected animals on their traditional lands and in their traditional waters - however, when it comes to killing of these lovely animals by factory ships and for factory processing, not for a limited indigenous use, but for the tables of the extraordinarily rich, there seems to me to be little difference between this and the killing of elephants for ivory, rhinos for their horns and alleged contribution to horniness, tigers for their supposed sexually regenerative powers, gorillas for ashtrays and the years long torture of bears for their bile, tormented geese for their livers and appallingly deprived wee calves for their white meat - sadly, the list of needless suffering imposed on animals for crazy and needless luxuries and superstitions goes on and on.

Yep - my argument IS emotional - and to some extent culturally bound - and there are lots of appalling things happening to people, too - but I do not see this as an either/or situation, and I wish people would not kill and impose suffering unnecessarily.

Also, I know I have fallen for the very sexy megafauna attraction that I have decried - but so it is, I guess - I do see whales as especially precious in some ways.

Sigh...

does anyone have some real stats about the use of whales that are caught. ive been told that the greatest amount goes into pet foods. Ive been to Asia numerous times and , although Ive been offered some really funky stuff, I dont ever recall seeing WHALE on the menu.

In the Bay of Fundy the Minke whales and Finbacks are quite numerous , and are grow ing in population size.You have to watch your piloting skills to avoid close calls. Finbacks dont show any fluke so they rise very close to the surface and the best way to see them is to watch the bubbles and swells. The Canadian CG enforces a 100 meter motor distance for any whale /boat contact. Ive been warned once when I was trying to take a short haul straight into St Georges and got into a pod without any warning. I stopped and floated a while with engine off and the RCCG gave me crap for drifting so close when I really should have been in idle so the whales could hear my deisel. (cant even be a good guy to the Canadian Coast Guard)
..I heard that they are targeting Minke Whales for capture. If youve ever seen one, they are about only 30 ft long (TOPS) and are very slim and not blubbericious. Killing these is the cetacean equivalent of shooting chihuahuas.

I'll believe that there are whale research projects in Japan. The country's not stupid, I'm sure they want to find ways to clone meat or aid in whale population growth. I don't, however, believe that ANY whale population is abundant enough to cause depleted fishing. WE cause depleted fishing......

I'd like to see some links too.

Japan hunts whales to learn more about their biology, population dynamics and the amounts of different types of fish they're eating, but I don't deny they're engaging in commercial whaling.


Many people do like to eat whale meat.


I understand the emotional aspect, but compared to the fate of many other animals I don't see killing whales as particularly cruel. Unlike cattle & such, whales enjoy life in the wild and only a small percentage of them can be killed by hunting annually, if the species is allowed to be hunted.


This point should definitely be well taken into consideration, but enforcing the diet of another culture also seems to cross certain bounds to me. At any rate, whale meat is becoming less & less popular with the younger generations of Japanese I think.

littlek, I think this is a pretty well balanced article from Reuters. .

Japan stands defiant as world condemns whaling

(there are several unrelated articles further down that page)

This BBC article ( Norway 'undermining' whaling ban ) refers to the 'battle' between the UK and Norway. (Norway's answer is to be found via the link to the High North Agency - Norway ["UK Minister lies and contradicts himself"]

(Pay attention to the links on the BBC-website!)

An interesting website is this one from the Japan Whaling Association

monger-the point of comparison between whales and cattle is lost on me. We dont raise whales in an industrial setting, whales are subject to the vagueries of their own breeding years and are themselves subject to predation.
The Japanese "research fishing" is just a scam for an entire nation to sanction a practice that even they agree is outdated. STill, the market isnt taken entirely by whale sushi and Antarctic dinners. Ive seen many more restaurants in Kobe and Tokyo serving sea cucumbers and pinch worms than whale.

I think Monger's point about the cruelties of factory farming is a pretty good one. I would like to see that banned, too.

Grrr. Knee-jerk emotional arguments are why sayings like the following exist:

"Nuke the gay baby whales."

I wish the arguments about whale hunting didn't center on "precious" "suffering" etc. It it were up to deb we'd all be vegetarians while she eats "free chook" chicken.

Deb,

Your arguments about the "suffering" of animals and diet are simply contradictory by your on criteria.

If animal suffering is your criteria then eating whales is a fine idea.

How many sardines have to suffer to feed 100 people? How many whales?

I wish people would get over the emotions. Much of the time they make little sense.

My concerns about whales are begin and end with extinction.

<rant over>

Don't eat sardines -: p

I do understand your point - and I also accepted that my arguments are emotional.

We differ on emotion as one of the components of decision making.

And our term, here, is "Land rights for gay whales."

Or - feed the nuclear waste to the baby seals.....but that is not so relevant...