If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
In the case of either Norway or Iceland (can't remember which one), from the grand old era of 1930.
And as for the others, the point remains that today nobody depends on them in any way whatsoever.
How many whales could the Inuits manage to kill per year? Hardly the tens of thousands the combined fleets of Norway, Iceland and Japan if they were allowed to hunt at will, I'm sure you'll agree.
Bollocks. They just like the taste of it.
Of course the population of the world, the techniques and means to hunt and fish and our capacity to carry out checks and surveys due to advances in technology have changed everything have they not?
It is the culture of the Chinese to kill tigers and use their crushed bones for "medicine". Do you defend their right to hunt tigers too, as part of their culture?
You could say the same of everything. I'm sure those who believe in stoning women to death for adultery don't see it as barbaric at all...
Other than the fact that the moratorium exists because we almost drove whales to extinction, you mean?
It follows because absolutely nothing would be lost if people weren't allowed to eat whale meat again. Other than a few diners lamenting the loss of the delicacy as they look through the hundreds of different options still available on the menu.
It also means that there is no need to kill a single whale ever again doesn't it?
Even if those claims of the stocks having recovered fully are accurate what makes you think it won't happen again? Next time we might be too late in implementing a new moratorium, given the human nature for greed and 'fuck you' attitude to everything.
Not only that. Any lift of the moratorium will quite probably mean a threat to the very survival of the species in the mid term, if not short term.
I really don't know what makes you think any different. Even as the cod population nears the point of no return there are men across the world still fishing it with impunity saying it's their 'right', 'heritage' or 'livelihood'.
Thats entirely consistent. Whales eat large amounts of fish and krill, and so do we. We're in direct competition with them. Now, I'm not suggesting that the whales are in any way "responsible" for the depletion of stocks of fish and krill. Animals cannot be considered responsible for their actions, they will simply breed as fast as their biology allows them to, and are at the mercy of their food source as the main variable for their survival, if they are not predated upon. Now we no longer predate on whales, the only limiting factor on their numbers (besides pollution, collisions with ships, climate change, etc) is the quantity of prey available to them, and they will consume this prey without restraint, since that is what they are genetically programmed to do. If all whales went extinct, it wouldn't have "unimaginably catastrophic" consequences, it would simply mean that there would be more of their prey species for us to harvest. Since we overharvest these resources as well it wouldn't make that much of a difference.
Untrue. Norweigian and Icelandic commercial whalers depend on whaling. So do Japanese "scientific" whalers. Then you have significant numbers of people (especially in Japan) who are now unemployed, with their communities devastated, because they are no longer allowed to hunt whales.
You'd be suprised. Firstly, the point is that in reality Norway, Iceland and Japan are "allowed" to hunt whales at the moment, and they do. The IWC is a voluntary organization and signatories are allowed to lodge official objections that allow them to "break the rules": this is what Norway did almost immediately after the moratorium, and have been hunting whales ever since. As we've noted, the Japanese have effectively resumed hunting whales under the guise of "scientific whaling." Iceland are doing the same. If the IWC continues to refuse them the right to do it commercially, eventually they'll just withdraw from it entirely, and then there won't be any regulation at all. Secondly, no one is suggesting that they should be allowed to hunt whales "at will," what is being suggested is lifting the moratorium so these countries can carry out a highly regulated, sustainable hunt. This, at the present time, would certainly not mean killing "tens of thousands," because that would not be sustainable, so no, I don't agree.
Yes, certainly I would, if there was a population large enough for a sustainable hunt, and their hunting activity was monitored by an international body.
But stoning women to death concerns humans, not animals. Also, I wouldn't advocate coercing countries into changing their laws, its up to a sovereign state to decide what laws it sets. We certainly shouldn't support or encourage countries/cultures who carry out stoning of women, but that doesn't mean we should coerce them into changing their laws, either.
In an entirely different economic circumstances, yes. I don't question the decision to originally impose the moratorium, because I agree that pre-moratorium whaling was unsustainable, and the commercial whaling fleets at that time showed no regard for the future of the resource.
But what makes you think you have the right to dictate to other cultures and individuals what they "need" to do? What they "need" is freedom to do what they wish to do, as long as it doesn't endanger the existence of the common resource they want to harvest. If they are regulated well enough then I don't see that they will endanger whale populations. Because you don't see the "need" for it it doesn't give you the right to dictate to people on the other side of the world what they are allowed and not allowed to do.
So do you think we should have a complete moratorium on commercial fishing as well? Because that represents a much greater and more widespread "tragedy of the commons" than whaling, and with far greater consequences.
Its clear that fishermen will also deplete stocks past the point of collapse, so surely there should be a complete ban on commercial fishing as well? And why stop there, there are plenty of other common resources that are being overexploited. But there is no indication that an official resumption of whaling will result in overexploitation, especially considering the public and media spotlight on whales.
Where are you getting your information from for this?
If there is little demand for whale meat then I don't see the problem in lifting the ban, since its even less likely to result in exploitation than if there was regulation of high demand.
I don't buy it.
Yes, those in the trade. Not entire countries.
That is exactly the argument put forward by those fishermen who trade in cod. Should we allow them to continue for the sake of their jobs?
Well given that they're managing to hunt nearly two thousand between them with all the restrictions in place, imagine how many they'd be hunting if they were free to do as they please- specially Japan.
Nice. That's not even for meat. Just for ignorance and superstition (for that is exactly what it is) and sometimes for the vanity of despicable cunts who think it's cool to have a tiger skin rug on their living room.
But seeing as tigers are one of the most endangered species on earth right now, do you support the right for the Chinese to hunt them as things stand?
We obviously hold opposite views on that issue. I wouldn't support the use of force because it almost never works but sanctions, as much pressure as possible, boycotts, hell, yes. Who's going to speak for the women otherwise?
Who is going to speak for the whales as well? Even though they have a highly developed and complex language we can't understand what they're saying.
But it will endanger the whale population. And it is barbaric. And the whales don't belong to them ffs. We have a duty to try to make the world a better place and to protect the future of the planet.
If the Japanese were in the habit to drive nails through their cocks it would also be barbaric, but at least they would not be inflicting horrible pain on other species and endanger them.
Moratoriums need only apply to those species that are being overfished and are being depleted to dangerous levels, so no I don't believe we should have a moratorium on all fishing.
There should be one on cod, that's for sure. And, to be brutally honest, to hell with 'jobs' and 'livelihoods'. There is a lot more at stake here. The same can be said in my opinion of whaling, which is one of the reasons why I'd like to see it banned altoghether.
I don't know how much I believe that livelihoods rest on being able to go whaling, and how much I believe that it is a cultural tradition that is deserving of preservation. If there truly are people who depend on whaling to live hand-to-mouth then I would prefer to look at helping them to make their livelihood in other ways, rather than allowing them to start whaling again. I just don't think it is justified to lift the ban - and despite having read some really interesting points in this thread I continue to feel that way.
I can't really say a lot more on this because I can't view the issue without a huge emotional slant which is never good news in this forum :razz: so I'll shut up.
However I do still have my relic of the 80s t-shirt and I'd still wear it today if it would fit over my ear - SAVE THE WHALES! :thumb:
Thats why I said its not the whales that are to blame for the collapse in fish and krill stocks. Humans overfished them, it is humans that are to blame. Whales just do what they have done for hundreds of thousands of years and feed as much as they need to stay alive. All I was saying was that it would not be an "unimaginable catastrophe" if whales became extinct, it would just result in more fish and krill, which in a way would be good for us as a species. However, I'm not saying that we should be indifferent to the survival of whales (god forbid actually deliberately driving them to extinction), because biodiversity desirable for humankind and all other species on the planet, and they are also a useful resource for us to harvest in a sustainable manner.
What does that matter? Do individuals have to comprise of an entire country to be considered worthy of notice or attention?
No, it doesn't necessarily mean they should be allowed to continue/resume exploiting a resource. I was just pointing out that people's survival and livelyhoods do rely on whaling, which you had denied.
But thats exactly the point. There are no practical restrictions in place, as the Japanese "scientific" whaling proves. They are essentially free to hunt as many whales as they want, which is exactly what they are doing. The same goes for Norway, who can harvest as many whales as they want because they have registered an official objection to the moratorium. Iceland are now simply ignoring the moratorium altogether. Better to lift the moratorium and at least let the IWC set the quotas, to make sure they don't over-exploit.
No, as I said before, since hunting them would be entirely unsustainable they shouldn't be allowed to hunt them. Biodiversity is a common resource for all mankind, not just for the peoples who govern the particular territory a natural resource is found on. But if there were large enough numbers, yes, people should be allowed to use the resource if they deem it to be necessary.
Well of course I support the right of individuals to boycott products if they dislike them or the place they come from. I do so myself. Just as I don't think anyone should be forced to eat whale meat. But I don't seek to impose my values about the use of resources (as long as it is sustainable) on other cultures.
But most fish stocks around the world are endangered. And if moratoriums were imposed on certain species it would increase the pressure on all of the others. The fishing industry as it stands is a truly unsustainable one, which causes massive devastation to the seas and oceans. Whole regions of the oceans are utterly devastated, the sea-floor ripped to shreds and left a wasteland. Once one stock collapses the fishermen move onto the next one.
Now that is an unsustainable industry. Not only does it do massive damage to the actual resource, but also to the ocean ecosystem, the physical "infrastructure" (the sea bed), and ironically kills more whales and dolphins through bycatch than the whaling industry. Whaling simply involves identifying a single animal, killing it, and removing it from the sea; not sweeping up square miles of the ocean at a time in order to extract a small amount of biomass.
And still you assert that whales (that whalers want to harvest) are an endangered species, which is flatly not the case.
erm overfishing for the sake of it? as what happens with fishing at the moment which isn't regulated in the ways it should
i'd be happy for these places to whale but they don't need to, if you read my links earlier it'd show you that the price of whale meat is falling fast, it's being chucked overboard as they get too much and it's being used in school dinners which says more than anything really
Its not necessarily simplistic, but I think it rests on an assumption that is generally held and is incorrect: that the whaling industry now would be involved in whaling for the same purpose and scale as when the moratorium was put in place in the early 1980s. This isn't the case. As I outlined before, pre-moratorium whaling was about exploiting as many whales as possible in order to obtain whale-oil. It was an absolute disgrace, and whales were clearly over exploited. Vast factory ships went on expeditions in which they slaughtered hundreds of whales at a time. But the demand for whale oil is now zero: whaling advocates simply want to see a small number of whales harvested to obtain food that has traditionally been a staple in some cultures.
The best hope for many previously whaling reliant communities is whale-watching, which is now a billion USD industry. Seems like a good idea for me, but I think some people should still be allowed to hunt whales if they want to.
Also, there are hundreds of thousands of people exempt from the whaling moratorium, "aboriginal subsistence whalers." They do live "hand to mouth" on whaling, and it has been their tradition for centuries, if not thousands of years. In fact, US citizens kill more whales every year than Norway and Iceland put together (IIRC), through aboriginal whaling.